The Ministry of Education and Youth's Spanish curriculum pilot programme will be extended to students of grades three and six this academic year, while 50 additional institutions will be included in the programme.

Winston Forrest, aActing assistant chief education officer in the Core Curriculum Unit at the ministry, told JIS News that some $4 million would be spent in the effort.

The programme started two years ago in 16 schools across the island with the aim of introducing a revised Spanish curriculum for primary and preparatory schools.

For pilot schools

In the 2004 to 2005 school year, Mr. Forrest explained, "We had invited schools, which were already doing Spanish, to take on the curriculum. In the 2004/2005 school year, we had grades one and four, and in the next school year, 2005/2006, we had grades two and five. In the upcoming school year, we should have grades three and six in those pilot schools," he informed.

Mr. Forrest explained that the rationale of conducting the pilot by grades was to mirror the success of the revised primary curriculum.

The primary Spanish pilot programme came out of a mandate by the Caribbean Community in 2003, to ensure that citizens within the region could speak a second language.