There is consensus among CARICOM Heads of Governments that foreign language competence among their citizens is imperative for effective interaction between the countries of different linguistic and cultural background in the region. In this context, CARICOM governments are advocating the provision of foreign language education from the primary level and to this end, the CARICOM Secretariat secured the assistance of the Organization of American States for a project to enhance the teaching and learning of Spanish at the primary level. Following two workshops with Foreign Language curriculum officers and representative Spanish teachers from the CARICOM region, a Philosophical Framework and Enhanced Primary Spanish Curriculum were developed for CARICOM countries and distributed to the Ministries of Education in CARICOM countries.

The next phase is to conduct a Workshop to prepare a Spanish Training resource team comprising Spanish Curriculum Officers and other persons designated by the various CARICOM Ministries of Education, to conduct training workshops for Primary Spanish teachers in their respective countries.

To ensure the relevance of this Training Project and to guarantee value added to the Primary Spanish offered at schools in the region, LACC carried out a needs assessment in early 2006 whereby stakeholders provided information on the situation of Spanish teaching and learning at the primary level, in order to guide the design of the workshop and materials.

The workshop is due to take place in second half of 2006 on the Mona Campus in Jamaica.