The Ministry of Education, Universities and Sustainability of the Government of the Canary Islands will launch, for the third consecutive year, the linguistic immersion workshops and summer dining rooms that will start on July 1 and will last until August 28, as reported this Wednesday at a press conference by the vice president and councilor of the area, José Miguel Pérez.
As a notable novelty on this occasion, the initiative is open for the first time to students in the first and second years of Compulsory Secondary Education, who join those in Infant and Primary Education. The beneficiaries are students of these stages who were selected in October by their educational center for the school breakfast program, whose families have expressed their desire to incorporate them into the workshops. Thus, this year's participants are boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 14.
The number of students enrolled this summer is around 5,000. As in last year's edition, the linguistic and dining offer is complemented by the recreational and sports activity. It should be remembered that this action, which started in a pioneering way throughout the State in 2013, aims to ensure lunch during the summer months for those students whose families are in an unfavorable economic situation, while improving their competence in English.
Among the students of Infant and Primary Education, there are students who have some type of motor difficulty, so they require the attention of an educational assistant. In addition, students with a beneficiary profile have been registered, but who have serious mobility and autonomy problems and cannot attend the workshops, so they will receive the dining service at their homes.
The activity will take place in 136 head centers distributed throughout the islands, from Monday to Friday, from 11:00 to 13:00 hours for the workshops and from 13:00 to 14:00 hours for the dining rooms. The Canarian Employment Service is in charge of selecting the personnel who will develop the workshops and who must participate in an initial training given by the Ministry, as usual. In total, the number of monitors employed is 310, of which 184 are sports monitors with knowledge of English, 103 English monitors and 19 educational assistants. Their work will be supervised by 23 coordinators.
As every year, the workshops will be launched in coordination with the local corporations, responsible for the opening and closing of the centers, as well as their cleaning. The school dining service will be provided by different catering companies.
"We said it at the time and we have maintained it throughout the legislature: this Government was not going to allow any boy or girl in the Canary Islands, whose family is going through economic difficulties, to go hungry. In the first two editions, more than 11,000 schoolchildren have participated in this initiative. About 5,000 more join them this summer," said José Miguel Pérez, who was accompanied during the press conference by the Deputy Minister of Education and Universities, Manuela de Armas.
"In addition, we have made a great effort to increase the aid for dining rooms and breakfasts during the last courses so that the boys and girls of the Canary Islands can develop adequately and perform in their studies by feeding themselves appropriately because we have always been aware that our students are one of our fundamental priorities. It should be remembered that during this course more than 60 percent of the users of dining rooms receive subsidies from the Autonomous Government and that 20 percent have a zero quota," added the councilor.
