There is a ‘very’ high possibility of public schools in Zimbabwe introducing Spanish as an optional language.
Already some public and private schools offer French as an alternative subject while some private institutions are said to be already teaching Spanish.
This revelation was confirmed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education who met with the Spanish ambassador to Zimbabwe, Santiago Gomez-Acebo to discuss this development.
In its official Twitter account, the education ministry announced: “The ambassador of Spain in Zimbabwe, Santiago Gomez-Acebo paid a courtesy call to the education minister, Dr Evelyn Ndlovu and her deputy, Edgar Moyo to lobby for Spanish as an optional language for primary and secondary education, so as to create an opportunity to do business with 700 million people.”
In an interview with CITE, Director of Communications and Advocacy in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Taungana Ndoro, confirmed there was a high possibility Spanish could be adopted in public schools, as an optional language.
“The possibility of this happening is very high,” he said.
“In some of our private schools, you would find that Spanish is already being offered as an optional language. But the proposal here from the (Spain) ambassador was to request for our public and government schools to also offer Spanish as an optional language.”
Ndoro did acknowledge that teaching Spanish in schools would require competent teachers.
“Obviously it would require issues to do with teachers who are competent and teachers who are trained also in Spanish so that they may be able to teach Spanish,” said the education ministry spokesperson.
