An­na-Lisa Paul

Three months af­ter the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion launched the fifth in­stal­la­tion of the Span­ish for pub­lic ser­vants course, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 115 per­sons have grad­u­at­ed with a cer­tifi­cate in con­ver­sa­tion­al lin­guis­tics.

The an­nu­al course is a col­lab­o­ra­tive ven­ture be­tween T&T and Colom­bia, and aims to im­prove the lin­guis­tic ca­pa­bil­i­ties of gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees in strate­gic sec­tors that di­rect­ly in­ter­face with for­eign­ers in this coun­try.

Among the suc­cess­ful batch of grad­u­ates yes­ter­day were of­fi­cers from the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion; the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion; the Pris­ons Ser­vice; the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre; and all gov­ern­ment min­istries.

Com­mend­ing the lat­est group of par­tic­i­pants for their com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to learn­ing the lan­guage dur­ing an awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Li­brary, Port-of-Spain, Colom­bian Am­bas­sador Martha Ce­cil­ia Pinil­la-Per­do­mo said this was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for lo­cals to strength­en their for­eign lan­guage skills and al­so pro­mote a friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries.

De­scrib­ing the in­ten­sive course as one which brings a great sense of achieve­ment and ful­fil­ment, Pinil­la-Per­do­mo said they were lucky to have brought two tu­tors from Colom­bia this year to as­sist stu­dents.

Among the ar­eas the stu­dents were ex­posed to were var­i­ous as­pects of Colom­bia’s cul­ture which in­clud­ed mu­sic, food, art and ed­u­ca­tion.

Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran de­liv­ered brief re­marks dur­ing which he ap­plaud­ed the ef­forts by the gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees to im­prove them­selves and by ex­ten­sion, re­la­tions with their South Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts.