british universities cutting foreign language courses

The British (and Irish and Americans and Australians) don't have to learn French or German or Chinese or whatever - which might be the answer to why the British don't learn foreign languages.

These subjects are clearly not seen as a priority in Britain.

The problem is that this is self-perpetuating - as for years, the UK's critical shortage of foreign language teachers has meant students can't be taught.

As reported earlier in the month in the i-paper, language courses are in danger of dying out - with university lecturers facing losing their jobs.

Yes, it seems that Modern Languages degrees are at risk in UK unis - as reported by the EL Gazette and Sofia Smith Galer: 

That is, at least, what Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said recently in an i paper exclusive. “The single biggest problem facing our country is the catastrophic decline in language learning, both in schools and now at universities. Learning a modern language becomes a little bit like learning Latin and Greek. It becomes something that ancient universities tend to do and other universities withdraw from.”

88 out of 166 UK universities are running either redundancy or restructuring schemes, and languages degrees are seriously at risk within this climate because fewer students seem to want to take them. The number of students taking up language degrees has dropped massively in the last 20 years; in 2003, there were more than 160,000 language undergrads, whereas in 2019 there were just 75,000. This is in line with declining numbers at GCSE and A Level, too...

Multilingualism brings innumerable health and social benefits; something for me to unpack, perhaps, in another newsletter. Quite apart from languages generating more job opportunities for young people, linguistics as a discipline is also incredibly important in the development of AI; without such expertise, we put ourselves at a technological disadvantage.

Another area of concern as I write my book on linguicide are the UK’s long suffering indigenous languages; when the cuts were tabled in Aberdeen, Gaelic was one of the single degree programmes that was facing the axe.

If you are British and hear rumours or reports that your university is considering cutting jobs in languages, I’d like to hear about it; I’d also be interested in hearing about the gravity of cuts you have already had to face in the last five years.

And yet, decision-makers need to realise that English is not the language of the successful British exporter.

Where's the money in that?

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