The organising committee for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has reached a deal to make international education company Education First its official supplier of language and training services.
From 2015, EF will deliver language training to candidates for the Rio 2016 volunteer programme, organising committee staff and contractors and school children with the aim of more than one million Brazilians being trained in a second language by the end of the Games. English, Spanish and French will be the main courses available.
For the general public, a website will offer a basic English course and also provide information about the Games.
The agreement builds on EF’s long association with the Olympic Games, which stretches back to the 1988 event in Seoul. More recently it was official language supplier to the Beijing 2008 and Sochi 2014 Games.