Začetek, razvoj in današnje stanje srednješolskih tečajev v povojni slovenski emigraciji v Argentini

All those who live abroad value their mother tongue very highly. In our case this is the Slovene language. Post-war Slovene immigrants to Argentina felt it their natural duty to pass on the spoken and written language to their descendants. They therefore founded joint local centres and primary school and secondary school courses designed to complement the transfer of the mother tongue taking place in families. In the environment in which they live, it is often not understood why Slovene is spoken in the home, but parents stick to their decision, and by attending primary school in this environment the children master both languages, often a lot better than their contemporaries of other nationalities. The decision to enrol in secondary school courses is made by the children themselves, though they are already considerably under the influence of an environment which tries to achieve the necessary education with the minimum effort. For this reason enrolments are relatively few. I f in first-generation families pas sing on the mother tongue was a duty, in second-generation families consciousness of this duty lessens, which affects children mainly during the period of adolescence. We should of course not forget ethnically mixed marriages, which are so much the more exposed to assimilation.V tujini vsakdo zelo ceni vrednost materinščine, v našem primeru slovenskega jezika. Povojni slovenski priseljenci v Argentini so čutili za naravno dolžnost, da govorjeno in pisano besedo predajo svojim potomcem. Zato so ustanavljali skupna krajevna središča, osnovnošolske in srednješolske tečaje z namenom, da dopolnjujejo predajo materinščine v družinah. O vpisu v srednješolske tečaje soodločajo dijaki sami, ti pa so že precej pod vplivom okolja, ki poskuša doseči potrebno izobrazbo s čim manjšim trudom. Zaradi tega je tudi sorazmerno manjši vpis. Če je bila v družinah prve generacije predaja materinščine otrokom dolžnost, v družinah druge generacije zavest o tej dolžnosti popušča, kar vpliva na otroke predvsem v dobi adolescenece. Pri tem ne gre pozabiti na narodno mešane zakone, ki so tem bolj izpostavljeni asimilaciji