Cervantes - No Crisis in Spanish Learning

The Instituto Cervantes announced that there is no crisis in Spanish learning. Every day more students are interested in learning Mario Vargas Llosa's (new Nobel Prize winner) native language: Spanish. Cervantes had more than 200,000 enrollments in either Cervante's owend or Cervante's approved academies.

The Instituto Cervantes was created in Spain in 1991 to promote the Spanish language and cultures of Spanish-speaking language. Their head office is located in Alcalá de Henares Madrid, birthplace of the writer Miguel de Cervantes. The institute has more than 70 centers in 4 continents.

Where is Spanish popular? Interestingly enough, the greatest demand comes from Moscow, where 5,200 students signed up for the last academic year. Carmen Caffarel, the director of Cervante's Institute, attributes this growth to the fact that Spanish grammar and pronunciation is fairly easy for Russians, and the cultural ties between Russia and Spain are growing.

Despite all the growth, the world-wide crisis has reached the Institute of Cervantes. They announced that the enthusiastic expansion policy of recent years is over and that in 2011 they will not open any new schools. They will, however, complete the centers that are currently in process of acquiring Cervante's status, such as centers in Hamburg (Germany) and Krakow (Poland). Also, before the end of the year, they will open the most controversial center in Gibraltar. The inaguration details are a mystery, but a member of the Spanish Royal family will likely attend.

To compensate the decision not to expand, Caffarel explained that Cervantes will invest in technology and new virtual classrooms to serve its more than 78 centers abroad and more than 2.3 million students.

The board of Cervantes had a reunion the 13th of October in teh Pardo Palace before King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Carmen thanked the ministry for Cervante's 103 million euros of budget, a decrease of only 0,6% from last year if the budget is approved by the Deputy Congress.

A special mention during the meeting also went out to recent Nobel Prize winner Vargas Llosa, who has been the patron of Cervantes since the institution was founded in 1992. The King stated that Vargas Llosa had deserved the award for some time now. The King also explained that one of their future objectives is that the Spanish language become a required or elective course in as many worldwide educational systems as possible, something that has already occurred in both Brazil and the Phillipines.