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[nomad soul]

Colombia missing EL targets
EL Gazette | January 2016
Source: www.elgazette.com

Despite the best efforts of the Colombian government, it seems that English proficiency among young Colombians is not improving, writes Andrea Perez. Only one in ten Colombians speaks English well, according to EduMe website. The country is immersed in the Bilingual Colombia Programme, an English language initiative that President Manuel Santos launched in 2004 with the goal of all high school graduates reaching an intermediate level of English by 2025.

Figures provided by public institutions show the limited levels of English in the country. According to the ministry of education, less than 3 per cent of high school students have an adequate knowledge of the language and nearly 50 per cent of English teachers in public schools did not have a B1 level of proficiency. The Central Bank of Colombia released a report in 2013 which showed that only 6 per cent of university students in the country have a good level of English.

To tackle this problem, a new phase of the bilingual programme has been launched. In November President Santos and education minister Gina Parody announced a new project: English immersions camps. ‘There will be English immersion camps in Colombia and summer camps in the United States,’ said Santos. Some 3,000 9th-grade students will benefit from this programme, but only 100 students will be able to study in the US, according to Colombian reports. Among other projects, the government has hired native speakers to teach in public schools and sent Colombian teachers to take part in English immersion programmes in India and the US.

(End of article)

[wanderingxelmundo]

Interesting. Do you have a link to the article? I searched for "Colombia" on their site and did not pull up the article, and Google only got me back here. Thanks.

[nomad soul]

[wanderingxelmundo]

ok, thanks, I was wondering why no searches were coming up with anything.