The Impact of COVI D-19 Pandemic on the Present and Future of the Internationalization Work

The Cervantes Institute is the Spanish state institution dedicated to the worldwide promotion of Spanish language teaching, study and use that helps in broadening the knowledge of Hispanic cultures in the world. Within the extensive international project of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Spain is a key player by virtue of the long historical bonds and the great amount of academic links with nationwide higher-education institutions.

In this framework, the Instituto Cervantes and UNAM have established a constantly growing and more active strategic relationship that aims at enlarging the number of long-term joint activities and projects. As part of the strategy, the Centro de Estudios Mexicanos de la UNAM in Spain is housed at the venue of the prestigious Spanish institute.

To talk on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the international work of academic institutions and its prospects, our dear friend Rafael Soriano Ortiz, Director of International Relations at Instituto Cervantes, has agreed on giving us his insight over a nice cup of coffee.

Dear Rafa, you have been very kind in receiving us. I know you are a very busy person, allow me please to go straight to the point. What are the main consequences of the pandemic on the students and teaching staff that you at the Instituto Cervantes have noticed in terms of academic performance and psychological effects?

When we were forced to cancel the academic and cultural program of our centers in China and Italy at the beginning of 2020, we were far from imagining what was going to happen in the following months. Immediately afterwards, the spread of COVID-19 caused the discontinuation of face-to-face activities of the Instituto Cervantes branches globally, including the Madrid venue. The serious health crisis turned into an unprecedented economic, social and cultural
crisis on a planetary scale.

At first, we were compelled to call off all our classes, the language certification tests under the responsibility of the Instituto Cervantes and the cultural program. Forced by the exceptional nature of the situation, centers like the one in
New Delhi had to be temporarily accommodated to shelter Spanish tourists caught up in India while waiting to be repatriated to Spain.

After implementing health emergency measures to provide adequate protection for our workers and students, we were primarily concerned with trying to keep doing our work without knowing for how long that was going to be possible and having on mind how conditions varied from one country to the other. In the middle of highly difficult circumstances but in record time, the Cervantes localbranches face-to-face academic courses became available online and the cultural activities turned into digital content. Increasing communication and information was a priority, particularly of all the materials generated in our Madrid venue, so that students and audience in general received clear information on the Instituto operational availability through digital means eventhough our buildings’ doors were closed.

Tell us, please, what are the tools developed by the Instituto Cervantes to deal with this situation?

As the centers closed, putting together the online learning format benefited from the existing digital materials, mainly the Aula Virtual del Español courses platform (AVE Global). The Institute provided the students whose classes were interrupted with free access to AVE courses, obviously it was easier to carry the face-to-face program into virtual content transition in countries where there was greater Internet access. For example, in March and April 2020, nearly 30,000 students followed their Spanish courses in our digital platforms, a figure that represents a 2,600% increase in digital licenses compared to those issued throughout 2019. To develop these classes, we had to mobilize more than 2000 tutors which was a colossal effort made by our academic community to adapt to the needs in such a health emergency.

It was much more difficult to reorganize the certification exams conducted by the Institute. This exam needs to be done in person and it had to be canceled on several occasions during 2020. With the passing of months and depending on how the pandemic evolved in each country, the evaluation calendars have been rearranged and measures have been taken to offer more attractive tariffs and discount policies to encourage students in presenting to the tests. Obviously, in those places where exams have been resumed throughout 2021, adequate hygiene and protection measures have been put into place in order to reassure students and teachers during the examination process.

Regarding our cultural program, all the activities had to be canceled or rescheduled. In view of face-to-face events cancellation, it was necessary to design an alternative online program that kept the quality and suitability of traditional style activities. Priority was given to promoting collaborations with local artists and supporting the recovery of the local cultural fabric. In this global crisis context, solidarity projects were launched such as the free offer of audiobooks for public hospitals or support and promotion activities in favor of the cultural sector workers. The confinement experience favored the launching of online campaigns to encourage reading and listening to music, in addition to the use of digital media to offer cultural contents that involved expressions like theater, cinema and dance. Likewise, we increased the promotion of the Instituto’s electronic library that contains 14,000 electronic books, 480 audiobooks,
more than 40 databases and hosts the Online Reading Club. Users tripled and downloads increased 380%.


Image: Centro de Estudios Mexicannos UNAM-España

The extraordinary response of the Instituto’s workers and the complicity of our students and general audience during the months of fight against the pandemic was essential in coping with the dramatic consequences of the situation. But, despite the efforts made and similarly to what has happened in many of our counterpart institutions in the European Union, it has not been possible to prevent the harsh economic impact of the crisis. In the case of the Instituto Cervantes, it must be considered that almost 50% of its budget depends on the generation of income resulting from the academic and certifying areas. Moving into online teaching does not produce enough earnings as student’s enrollment in in classroom courses; besides, the interruption of language certification tests has deprived the Institute of a substantial income to finance its activity and centers network. In the short term, a cost containment policy has been implemented to help compensate for the considerable decrease in revenues that had been budgeted. Such contingency measures have affected our cultural program and forced us to reconsider our priorities and the corresponding timetable.

The major challenge for all of us is to ignore for how long these guidelines designed to deal with the pandemic are going to be needed and mainly how the budgetary situation will be like once we could say that the health emergency is over.

Rafa, I suppose that for Instituto Cervantes, as it has been our experience at UNAM, the technological field has been both, a challenge and a window of opportunity. How has the institute used technology to ensure the quality of communication and teaching?

While I write these lines now, most of the Cervantes centers have partially resumed the face-to-face working activity. During these months of fighting the pandemic, the commitment and ability to adapt of the Instituto’s teams of people have been put to the test. In general terms, we have succeeded in moving extremely fast to the online working environment. It has now become clear how much potential online digital technology has to offer. Previously it was only used to complement the physical-world activities. This technological transition is not just a response to the crisis, it has now become part of our everyday working life.

Many of these changes, particularly in the digital arena, are not completely new. Like us, many other European institutions have already put in place digital teaching platforms. As a new and direct consequence of the pandemic, certain processes of change have taken place in an unprecedented speed; in different circumstances, we would have taken years to consolidate them. We have come to this conclusion since the technological transition we are experiencing is key to the future of our institution.

In your view, is it possible to come back to the pre-pandemic status quo? In a hypothetical scenario, in your opinion which would be the elements of continuity and of rupture?

The recent move to the digital world gives us some preliminary ideas. First, there is a clear and urgent need to increase the digital skills of our teachers and staff in general, as well as to improve the materials that the new virtual medium demands. Thus, specific programs have been recently developed to enhance the digital skills of teachers of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE). Secondly, a cultural diplomacy institution like Instituto Cervantes should equally commit to the digital and the physical environments of work. In both the academic and the cultural areas, with emphasis on the latter, the face-to-face program of activities carried out by our broad network of centers has intangible values that enable them to fulfill our goals in terms of fostering co-creation projects, cultural cooperation and promoting dialogue between those involved from the bottom to the top levels.

The digital technology is also going to give us new perspectives from which to address the progressive growth of our global network. If budget constraints have been usually so difficult to overcome in order to achieve our aims to expand to certain regions, it may now be possible to create virtual centers that broaden our horizons. However, these means should be simultaneously used in the recovery of our most emblematic projects in very specific countries. Although the pandemic affects our timetables, new physical centers must be opened given the growing importance of Spanish as a language and a culture in the world.

Briefly, our academic and cultural diplomacy development goals in coming years must be achieved allowing our centers to perform on a hybrid-option model combining the digital and the physical environments.

In terms of budget, we should be aware that COVID-19 pandemic is temporary and as soon as we manage to put it behind or learn to live with it thanks to general vaccination programs, the reasons of strength of our language and culture will be as valid as ever. The Spanish-speaking community will continue to grow, the economic value of Spanish will continue to increase, our cultural industries will have a bigger influence in the world and Spanish will make its way into the scientific and technological world, key areas to guarantee its status as a global language.

Specifically in your area of responsibility, what are the effects of the pandemic in the Instituto’s international projects?

In the coming months, Spain, like most countries in the international community, will have to launch a huge program for economic and social recovery that includes the cultural sector.

While we acknowledge that culture is a human defining trait, it is unusual to look at it as an economic activity sector. A statement made in June 2020 by EUNIC, the EU the network national institutes of culture, informed that there are nearly 9 million people working in the cultural sector (more than twice the number employed by the automotive sector) representing 4.2% of the European GDP. Culture and cultural industries create jobs and promote competitiveness, that is why the sector should now also play a significant role in economic recovery efforts. And, as underlined in EUNIC statement, our active participation in cultural life like reading a book, going to the theater, listening to music, contributes decisively to our health and well-being, therefore, these products are more appreciated than ever. On behalf of the cultural sector, considerably affected by the crisis, EUNIC institutions network
would like to stress out how important it is that the national governments on which we all are depending upon, as well as European institutions, provide bigger support and financial resources in order to cope with the crisis and adapt to post-COVID-19 challenges.

The Cervantes Institute is one of the entities that will benefit from the European funds’ allocation within the EU recovery plan. Our digital transformation goals will allow us to adequately address the challenge of being prepared for the post-pandemic world.

What do you think are the prospects of the Instituto Cervantes international project for the immediate future?

The Instituto Cervantes was created in 1991 with the purpose of becoming Spain’s flagship of cultural action abroad. As an agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, the Institute has managed to develop a worldwide network of eighty-six branches during thirty years. From the local branches coordinated and supported by our venue, we are disseminating the teaching of Spanish language, the Spanish culture and the cultural expressions of the Spanish-speaking countries throughout the world. Speeding-up digital transition will bring about the strengthening of our international work capacity.

Complementing this line of work, the Institute is devoted to active participation in international networks of cultural diplomacy such as EUNIC and the CANOA Network of Spanish-speaking countries, the most recent initiative created to expand our culture internationally. The member institutions of EUNIC and CANOA should not be perceived as competitors among each other but as allies in defending multilingualism and culture promotion as fundamental assets of the international work.

The Instituto Cervantes’ director Luis García Montero, poet and scholar, always points out in his speeches the fact that Spanish language must be an instrument of democratic seduction, a bridge of dialogue and values understanding. In a campaign launched during this difficult period, the slogan was “freedom is a bookstore”, a verse by Joan Margarit that well illustrates this vision. We want the Institute to foster spaces oriented to promoting understanding and democratic values, to safeguarding gender equality and environmental protection, using language and culture to unite not to divide. Then, it is not surprising that during the confinement period it has been possible to set up, together with government and academic allies from the Spanish-speaking countries, the already mentioned Red CANOA, seeking to develop joint actions to increase our international scope in non-Spanish-speaking countries. We should not fall in the temptation to use the crisis to build more closed societies but rather to strengthen intercultural dialogue and provide greater support to international cooperation. In addition to actively engaged in EUNIC and CANOA, the Cervantes’ near-future priorities envision the development of collaboration frameworks with counterpart entities in other countries. This is the way to benefit from the advantages of international mobility, experiences exchange and
strategy coordination. These are challenging times, full of uncertainties but with plenty of opportunities that we should be able to take advantage of.

You have been very kind in dedicating time to this interview, dear Rafael. One last question, please: what does Instituto Cervantes expect from UNAM as a partner?

The Instituto Cervantes and UNAM are partner institutions, friends and allies. There are countless initiatives in the academic and cultural fields that we have put together in recent years. Examples worth mentioning are the SIELE project for linguistic certification and the launching of the Red CANOA, also in collaboration with the Caro y Cuervo Institute of Colombia and the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of Peru.

This mutual understanding must continue and, if possible, it should be strengthened in favor of our shared objectives of promoting Spanish language in the world, as well as spreading out the cultural diversity of the Spanish-speaking community. Together we go further and obtain better results.

We share a vision of open and supportive globalization, committed to dealing with global challenges by means of dialogue and consensus building. We are engaged in advocating for the public support of the cultural sector and culture as a fundamental part of the ongoing efforts to recover from the consequences of this devastating period.

Thank you very much. It is always a pleasure.

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