Jamaican police, soldiers to get foreign language training

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Jamaican police, soldiers to get foreign language training

BY INGRID BROWN Sunday Observer reporter Sunday, October 01, 2006

NATIONAL Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips says there are plans in place
for members of the security forces to receive formal training in Spanish
and Haitian Creole to deal with the drug and gun smugglers, many of whom,
he said, are from non-English speaking countries. "There have been
occasions when we have to debrief persons who have secured entry to
Jamaica illegally, but we are finding ourselves without anyone capable in
our national security apparatus to do so," he said.

He noted that any effective preparation of Jamaica's security services
will require that there are Spanish speakers with the dialect ranging from
Cuba in the North to Colombia in the south, as well as Creole speakers who
are able to exchange ideas with the Haitian population. "The fact is that
we have made no consistent preparation of our security services to meet
the effective challenges which now confronts us," the minister said.

He was addressing a group of high-ranking members of the security force,
including the police, the military, immigration and customs officers, who
are participating in the second year of the Masters of Science in National
Security and Strategic Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI),
Mona. Phillips told the Sunday Observer later that there are also plans to
implement some of the language skills in the Master's programmes. "We have
Spanish and French teachers here in Jamaica, but there are some languages,
such as Haitian Creole, where there is not a lot of formal training
available," he said. Dr Hilton McDavid, the academic director of the
year-long programme, said that foreign language will be compulsory in the
course in the near future.

"We will make it compulsory (so) that a student is fluent in at least one
foreign language. The environment will be created for the students to
attend classes or a language lab where the course will be taught by
persons who speak the native tongue of the particular language," he said.
The first cohort of 18 students will, meanwhile, graduate from the
year-long course in November even as another 31 persons have been selected
for this year's programme. The course will cover, among other things,
research methods, dynamics of politics, international relations and
strategic management, governance, international and internal threat to
hemispheric security and national security policy.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20060930T210000-0500_113485_OBS_JAMAICAN_POLICE__SOLDIERS_TO_GET_FOREIGN_LANGUAGE_TRAINING.asp

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