By Raúl Gavarrette O.
The origins of the first Nicaraguan Spanish language schools dates back to the 80´s during the Sandinista revolution. In the eighties there was not a language teaching industry and it was not seen as a business activity. The way the first Spanish language school was launched to public did not have a commercial vision but a vision of helping the volunteers to manage the Spanish language. In that context the first Spanish language school opened in Nicaragua under the name of NICA Spanish School. This language school started operation in 1983 in Estelí, a northern Nicaraguan province surrounded by cool mountains. Beverly Truman, a female American resident who lived in Estelí, was the pioneer in opening a Spanish language school in Nicaragua. She was aware of the importance and the need of having a practical Spanish language center in Nicaragua for the non-native Spanish speakers cooperants and volunteers who came to Nicaragua in the eighties attracted by the Revolution and social changes in Latin America. This social and political phenomenon brought people from all over the world. Large international brigades of volunteers organized themselves and came to this country to experience the historic changes. One of the main purposes the Spanish school NICA has, was to teach the American volunteers who had fallen in love of the Sandinista revolution and came to Nicaragua to take part in many revolutionary tasks such as coffee picking, school building, electrical energy projects and many others. A graduate teacher from Estelí, Egdelina Lanuza, was working with Beverly by that time. Egdelina was a very active woman involved in social service and she was well known in Estelí. She was one of the first Spanish teachers as a second language in the Revolutionary Nicaragua. In the 80´s, this private Spanish language school social initiative provided the local teachers a decent job and sat up the very early bases for the Spanish language school’s industry in Nicaragua.
The school NICA trained its teachers on techniques on how to teach non-Spanish speakers’ people from around the world not only Spanish but the Nicaraguan culture, and the ideals of the revolutionary Sandinista government. This first Spanish language school was a great success in the north of Nicaragua.
The unexpected victory of Violeta de Chamorro in the presidential election in 1990 made many residents to change their mind and plans and most of them left the country almost right after Daniel Ortega lost the power in February that year. Beverly Truman left Estelí and returned to the United States. She closed the Spanish school NICA; consequently, the Spanish teachers lost their job. Egdelina Lanuza started then teaching private Spanish lessons in Estelí for some months. After almost a year teaching private Spanish lessons, she decided to get the formers NICA female teachers together and organized her own Spanish school. That is how the new Horizonte Spanish School-NICA opened in Estelí in 1991 as alternative employment for the local unemployed women. The new school HORIZONTE led by Egdelina involved the students in small rural community projects and connected them with the local organizations in town. The Escuela Horizonte-NICA managed and operated by Egdelina Lanuza continued giving its students through all those following years the best of the experience gained from that first historic Spanish school in Nicaragua.
Almost at the end of the 90´s Nicaragua experienced a tourist boom and became more popular as a new destination for tourism in Central America and entrepreneurs from North America were attracted by the potential Nicaragua represented. In 1997, a new language school Project was started in Nicaragua by Professor Raúl Gavarrette, the Nicaraguan representative and Executive Coordinator and the entrepreneur Paul Martin from the United States. This new project was called Nicaragua Spanish Schools (NSS). Since the beginning NSS intended to be an international agency to represent and focus on marketing the already established Spanish schools in Estelí. NSS agreed with the Spanish schools to open a marketing office in the United States and a branch in Nicaragua to represent the Estelí school, the Escuela Horizonte-NICA. Due to many facts this enterprise was unsuccessful and the school continued by itself.
Other Spanish schools organized by some former teachers from Escuela Horizonte-NICA started spinoff operations in Estelí: CENAC, Los Pipitos, and Sacuanjoche in 1997. None of these spinoff-schools stayed too long in the local market and ended operations. At the present year 2026 none of the above schools mentioned are open.
