The Ministry of Education is introducing the study of the Portuguese language to the curriculum for Grade 7 students in five high schools and says it is pushing for it to be an examinable subject at the CXC level.
The subject will be implemented at Queen’s College, Bishops’ High, St Stanislaus College, St Rose’s High and St Joseph High, a report from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said. A curriculum package that includes two work books for students (for in class and homework activities), and compact discs (CDs) to assist with pronunciation was designed by a team of curriculum developers. Teachers will be given curriculum guides for Grade 7, a hand book on basic Portuguese and “a textbook on everything Brazilian.” Plans are also in train to introduce Portu-guese at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) to teach local teachers the language.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand noted that while foreign languages have always been included on the schools’ curriculum and Spanish and French were being delivered, many of the rural schools had never had a foreign language teacher. The minister also said that the time had come to examine the relevance of
