To meet the rising demand for English speakers in the tourist
and service sector Hector Jimenez Marquez, Secretary of Public Education in BCS, points to the importance of language learning for all local children and
students.
As part of the state wide education strategy the National
English Program (PRONI) is being rolled out in pre-school, primary and high
school as well as university. The idea is to get children learning as early as
possible in as many ways as possible to maximise their employment opportunities
in the future.
Right now in Los Cabos alone there are 15 hotels underway
that will put at least another 5000 rooms on the market and bring at least another
10 000 tourists to the area. Many will be American and for those that aren’t
English will still be the common language.
This is a great employment opportunity for young people in
Los Cabos and as Jimenez Marquez points out “if our young people do not have at
least a basic command of this foreign language, employers have to hire people
who are not from the state”.
Participation so far is encouraging with 58 preschool, 124
primary, 85 secondary and 4 tele -secondary schools all taking part.