LA PAZ, April 19 (NNN-RHC) -- President Evo Morales has advised Bolivian farmers and workers to make sure their children learn another language so they can apply for scholarships to study abroad.

"We have a weakness here and not just among the tropical peasant movement but throughout all of Bolivia's peasant and labor movement: our children cannot win scholarships because they don't speak English," he said at an event in the lowland province of Cochabamba, his political stronghold.

In meetings the government organizes for foreign-study scholarships, no more than 2% of those who classify are "sons and daughters of the peasant and labor movement," said Bolivia's first indigenous president.

"I want you to understand me, our children (of peasants and workers) might well be the finest professionals, but if they don't speak English, they'll never win a scholarship for a master's degree or a doctorate," Morales said.

The Bolivian President asked those sectors to "require" that their kids, besides speaking Spanish and indigenous dialects, learn a foreign language in order to have the chance to win a scholarship, so that after studying abroad they can return to Bolivia capable of managing the companies and industries their government is founding.