Get to know our history
From its beginnings, the University of Navarra received in its classrooms a significant percentage of foreign students, whose mother tongue was not Spanish language . For this reason, the need soon arose to support the integration of these students through courses of language Spanish. The first courses began in the summer of 1954 and were aimed at students of the Schools Law and Medicine departments.
Beginning in 1964, Spanish classes also began to be taught at academic year. Since the learning of a language is inseparable from the culture that generates it, they began to be complemented with history, literature, art, etc. classes.
In 1967, the high school de language y Cultura Españolas (ILCE) was officially established, whose training has not been purely instrumental, but from its beginnings has sought to be university-based, combining the professor and research aspects.
In addition to promoting the magazine RILCE, the high school has promoted the collection "classroom Exterior", of the publishing house Eunsa, with titles aimed at students of Spanish as a foreign language language , with topics that cover the linguistic and cultural disciplines taught at ILCE.
Along with the readers and specialist teachers at teaching of Spanish, numerous teachers from the School of Philosophy y Letras and other centers have taught teaching at ILCE. Likewise, high school has been one of the first centers in Spain accredited by high school Cervantes to take the DELE exam (Diploma de Español como language Extranjera).
During its 70-year history, the University of Navarra's internationalization has grown. With it, the courses of language and Spanish culture for non-native speakers have also grown. Thus, what in its beginnings was a pioneering response to a reality to which the Spanish university of that time was little accustomed, today is an inseparable part of our project University. Our students are, in many cases, prospective students from Degree, Erasmus students and other programs from exchange, undergraduate students, postgraduate program and even researchers, professors and employees.
At high school we also have students whose main programs of study during their time at the University of Navarra are only those of ILCE. Our academic programs allows them to acquire broad linguistic and cultural competencies in just one year, which is a great opportunity for them.