Letter: Language cuts

There has been a lot of press surrounding the surging costs of accommodating EU students in our universities. This deficit is exacerbated by the failure of our own students to take advantage of the same opportunities offered by universities across the EU.

The reticence of our student population to be as internationally mobile as their EU counterparts has been long reflected in the low uptake of Erasmus placements by Scottish students compared with the rest of the EU. Rather than looking to halt the number of EU students coming to our shores, we should be looking to invest in our education system to ensure that the same global opportunities enjoyed by EU students are provided to our own.

Given that poor language skills are one of the principal barriers to students looking to experience study abroad, it is worrying that one of the first subject areas to meet the wrath of spending cuts are modern languages.

While other countries are increasingly global and internationalist in their education systems, with greater emphasis on modern languages, we see our own education system doing the reverse. Over the past few years we have seen cuts to modern languages in the primary school training, foreign language assistants and the modern language departments of our two biggest universities.

The lip-service approach to modern languages raises real and pressing concerns about our education systems internationalist credentials. With elections coming up I would be interested to hear how incumbent and prospective education ministers intend to halt the demise of modern language provision to ensure our education system is fit for a global 21st century.

Jonathan Robertson

Braeside Avenue

Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire