Issues in language policy for higher education

Abstract

Higher education is in a period of far-reaching changes in Europe, and language programmes are vitally affected by these changes. In addition to language competence development, often in at least two foreign languages, these programmes may provide detailed study of different aspects of societies, such as social and political structures as well as business environment. Every university has adopted a strategy of internationalisation, seeking to attract staff and students from abroad, develop links with institutions in other countries, and raise the international ranking of the university. The situation provides important opportunities but also serious threats. Since policy makers are busy people, they will generally not wish to spend much time in puzzling out the nature of a problem or what they ought to do about it. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the most important issues in language policy for higher education across Europe, and to offer some suggestions about how they might be addressed in practice. In order to achieve the effective development of foreign language competence in higher education, it is important that academic staff should engage with policy makers in order to persuade them of the importance of foreign language competence. These problems need to be addressed to policy makers at a national level, such as ministers and civil servants.

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ORCID for Michael Kelly: orcid.org/0000-0001-7955-3860

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