euskalkultura.eus

Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Tomorrow and the day after 32 Basque students in America (primarily from Argentina) will take accreditation exams in Buenos Aries for HABE levels 1, 2, and 3.  This is an extraordinary call, the first to take place on American soil, and indicates, according to sources in HABE, a huge step forward for the Euskara Munduan program.

HABE has two sessions annually for accreditation of Basque levels normally direct to students in Euskadi and another directed to students in Basque clubs.  This last one was usually attended by students in Madrid and Barcelona, and two years ago, due to the high number of participants, it took place in Paris.

This year, the number of Argentinean candidates was very high and so warranted testing being held in Buenos Aires.  This is a historic moment since it is the first time that these exams are taking place in America.

Argentinean Examiners

Kinku Zinkunegi, HABE technician and coordinator of the Euskara Munduan program arrived in Buenos Aires today to supervise the exams.  It should be noted that the examiners are from Argentina: Gabriel Arce and Sabrina Otegui (correspondent for EuskalKultura.com in Argentina).  Arce and Otegui began the Euskara Munduan program in 2004 and today are both accredited in level 3 of Euskera (EGA level).  They also participate as instructors in the barnetegis for the new professors that take place in January and July.

"In 2012, as any other candidate of the Basque autonomous region, they took the exams to become examiners," explained Zinkunegi to EuskalKultura.com. "I would like to stress their progress, because they are an example of what we want to achieve with Euskara Munduan.” "They know the program from within: they themselves have suffered/enjoyed the process and now have become high-level multipliers.”