Job anguish for immigrants as English language courses face cuts

Despite David Cameron's call for immigrants to learn English, public funding for language schools across the country is to be cut back

The Guardian

Stay-at-home UK students still the 'worst in Europe' for study abroad

Lack of language skills and worry about academic inflexibility deter venturers, writes Hannah Fearn

Efforts to encourage more UK students to study abroad appear to be failing, with the country retaining the worst outbound-inbound student ratio in Europe.

According to data from the Academic Cooperation Association, the UK still sends just one student abroad for every 20 who come to the UK to study for a degree.

Times Higher Education

Dumping languages stunts life chances, schools are told

State schools were accused of disqualifying their pupils from top jobs today after it emerged that little more than a third of them now teach the majority of their pupils a foreign language.

The Guardian

Erasmus Scheme’s ‘unfairness gap’ criticised

The Erasmus Scheme was set up in 1987 with the admirable aim of increasing academic mobility within Europe.

Via the funding of exchange programmes for students and staff, the scheme involves 90 per cent of all European universities and colleges across 31 countries.

However, as it approaches its quarter-century, the equitability of the scheme is a matter of debate, and it remains unclear whether students in some participating countries – rich or poor – get as much out of it as those from others.


Times Higher Education

Report criticises GCSE languages tuition

Some state secondary schools do not have a single pupil taking a modern foreign languages GCSE, inspectors reveal today.

A report by Ofsted, the education standards watchdog,.reveals that two-thirds of secondary schools have failed to reach a benchmark set by the previous Government that half their pupils should study a modern foreign language at GCSE.

The Independent

What to do with a degree in American studies?

It's a big draw and living the American dream need not be out of reach

The Guardian

European languages applications to university decline, despite overall increase

Young people denied a place to study last autumn are fuelling a surge in university applications for the coming academic year, ahead of tuition fees rise in 2012, Ucas figures show

Applicants' subject choices indicate a decline in European languages, which dipped by 1.4%,

The Guardian