The Ambassador of Spain to Jamaica Josep Bosch and Minister of Education, Youth and Information Ruel Reid on Thursday witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Agency for International Development Cooperation of Spain and Shortwood Teachers’ College for the provision of a trained lecturer of Spanish from Spain to bolster the college’s Foreign Languages Department.

Under the agreement, the Spanish lecturer will be retained for three years and will be remunerated by both Spain and Jamaica. Spain will provide a salary of US$64,000 and cover transportation costs, while Shortwood will provide a stipend of up to US$500 to complement the salary, and accommodation. Spain will also provide learning and research material.

Principal of the college Dr Christopher Clarke, who signed on behalf of the teacher training institution, stressed in his address that “a modern and competitive country in the 21st century cannot be monolingual”, adding that “mastering foreign languages, especially Spanish, with regards to Jamaica’s central location in the Caribbean surrounded by Spanish speakers, can create great opportunities for the youth in the BPO sector, logistics and tourism”.

The college has plans to build a new state of the art Modern Languages Department with a language laboratory to enhance the foreign language training programmes at the institution.

For his part, Minister Reid congratulated Shortwood on the agreement and emphasised the importance of teacher training to the Government’s and his Ministry’s thrust to make Spanish the official second language of Jamaica, as declared by Prime Minister Holness in 2016. He stated that he wanted to see Spanish mandatory beyond grade nine, and starting as soon as in early childhood. He acknowledged that the main challenge was to increase the number and capacity of teachers.

He expressed gratitude on behalf of the Government and people of Jamaica to the Government and people of Spain for the programme, which he said is fully aligned with the policy and goals of the ministry.

In his remarks, Ambassador Bosch reiterated that Spanish means jobs and opportunities for Jamaica.

“The re-opening of the Spanish Lecturer programme is only the first step of a long path of cooperation in meeting the challenge of making Spanish Jamaica’s official second language,” he stated.

“The possibilities are varied and it’s my personal commitment to explore them and make them real for Jamaica,” added Bosch.

The Ambassador informed the gathering that the Mission was looking forward to the visit of a team from the Cervantes Institute of Spain, the main institution for the promotion of the Spanish language and culture. His Excellency stated his hope that the mission would witness Jamaican’s commitment to Spanish and, as a result, be able to open a wider channel of cooperation. Ambassador Bosch emphasised that this was one tof he main goals of his tenure in Jamaica, which began in May 2018.

Eight lecturers of Spanish from Spain were assigned to tertiary institutions in Jamaica between 1991 and 2012.