I’ve been on holiday recently to Costa Rica – somewhere I’ve always wanted to go – and despite the trip down to Gatwick (no flights direct from Manchester) and 11 hours in the air it was terrific. Blue skies, lush greenery and animals galore. At the top of my wish list of beasties to see was the sloth! I wasn’t bothered about the monkeys, the crocodiles, the kinkajou… or even the rather attractive tarantula that popped up near the path one day. All I wanted was a real, live sloth. And, dear reader, I got plenty of them, hanging high in the trees. They might be slow but they’re not daft; so they stay high enough not to get caught which makes taking good photos difficult unless you’ve got a very high spec camera!
But what really struck me when we were out and about was the fact that everywhere we went people seemed cheerful and very, very proud of their country. I did some research when I got back and it turns out that they are number 14 (out of 157 countries) in the World Happiness tables published by the United Nations. They’re lucky in that they’ve never had to fight for independence and they seem to have escaped the internal wars that have caused havoc in many of the neighbouring Central American countries. So, they don’t have an army which means the money that is usually used to maintain the military can be spent on a good health service and good education.
In fact they claim that the literacy rate is 97.8%. Pretty impressive! And they feel that it’s this emphasis on education for the younger generation that has allowed them to move forward making money from eco-tourism, agriculture and sustainable energy.
It’s a little bit like the school I went to. Our motto, in Latin, was ‘sanctas clavis fores aperit’ which means ‘the key opens holy doors’ – and that key was knowledge. The only way a country – and the people living in it – can move forward is by making sure that the education system works.
And here at Business Training, that’s what we’ve been trying to do over the past 47 years – we’ve been delivering first-class education around the world. We help people to improve their English so that they can succeed in business and help themselves, and the countries where they live, to move forward. So if you’re forward looking and would like to improve your education, take a look at the courses we offer, and get in touch today!
Author: Diana Nadin
