A Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (EOI) (English: Official School of Languages) is a Spanish language school. Each autonomous community controls its language schools. The schools teach foreign languages as well as Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Euskara.
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They are regulated in the current Spanish education system (LOE) as specialized education (Spanish: Enseñanzas de Régimen Especial) and by the Royal Decree 1629/2006.
Before the Organic Law of Education 10/2002 the language studies were composed of two cycles: Elementary (3 years, minimum 120 hours each) an Superior (2 years, minimum 120 hours each).
After the Law the study plan follows a slightly different structure based on three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. The new structure will gradually take over the old one over a period of five years.
The schools are dependent on each Autonomous Community. The number of schools in each Community is as follows (in approximate numbers):
The prerequisite to enter an EOI is to have completed the first of the two cycles of secondary education in Spain or the equivalent abroad. Spain is the only country in the European Union offering this kind of public education and issues official certificates for it.
The 22 languages offered vary according to the school size:
Some EOI offer also summer courses and programs specialized in translation, writing, business or law.