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Brazil's Foreign Ministry Says No English Needed
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Fri Jan 14, 8:46 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Should aspiring Brazilian diplomats be able to speak English? Not according to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who reached the top without it.
The foreign ministry of the Portuguese-speaking country has eliminated fluency in English as a requirement to enter its school for diplomats.
Lula, Brazil's first president to rise from the working class, has often said Brazilians do not need to speak English to get ahead in the world, pointing to himself as an example. Lula has no secondary education and is a former metal worker.
Local newspapers are running long articles about the decision.
"This is just a statement of infantile anti-Americanism," leading daily Globo said in an opinion piece on Thursday.
"This is a serious threat to Brazilian diplomacy."
Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who has given Brazil a much louder voice in the world, said dropping the English requirement was intended to make entry to diplomat school more "democratic."
"We can't allow that somebody doesn't pass the test just because they didn't study or live abroad," Amorim was quoted as saying.
Brazil is one of the world's most unequal societies and the rich minority has access to much better education than most Brazilians get in public institutions.
Portuguese is one of the world's top 10 languages, with around 194 million speakers, according to Ethnologue Web site. Brazil, with a population of 180 million, accounts for most of those with the rest mainly in Portugal and its former colonies in Africa and Asia. |
