Review of modern foreign languages provision in higher
education in England
20/10/2009
Organisation
Higher Education Funding Council for England
(HEFCE), commissioned to Professor Michael Worton, Vice Provost of
University College London
Timescale
May - October 2009
Research Aim
The review was commissioned by HEFCE in
response to concerns about falling numbers of language students and
funding provision at HE. The intention of the review is to
investigate the health of modern foreign languages provision in
English higher education (HE), taking into account policy and other
developments over the past few years in order to make
recommendations on how the long-term sustainability and vitality of
MFL provision in higher education could be assured.
Research Design
There are three parts to the
report published online on 20 October 2009:
- Policy and developments: the national
context
- Languages in HE: facts, figures and a
snapshot of the discipline
- Conclusions and recommendations
The review takes information, data and views
supplied to Professor Worton by organisations and individuals.
There are also three online questionnaires for departments and
subject associations to respond (contents of the questionnaires see
Appendix of the report). In addition, the review held a
consultation day with representatives of Modern Languages
Departments, of Subject Associations and of university Language
Centres.
Outputs
Full report can
be downloaded from the HEFCE website.
Completed
Yes
Related links
The following links to reports and
initiatives are in the order of appearance as in the report of
the review.
Nuffield Inquiry into Languages
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics
and Area Studies
Routes into
Languages
Collaboration
Programme for Modern Languages
Nuffield report: A New Landscape for Languages
The National Languages Strategy in Higher Education
Strategically
important and vulnerable subjects: Final
report of the 2008 advisory group
Internationalisation of HE: A 10 Year View
National Languages Strategy
CILT language Trends
Five
Years on: The Language Landscape in 2007
Primary Modern Foreign Languages
(NFER)
Emerging Stronger: the Value of Education and Skills in Turbelent
Times (CBI)
CILT: Why Languages Matter
Graduate
Employability: The Views of Employers (Council for Industry and
Higher Education)
Stronger
Together: Buissnesses and Universities in Turbulent Times
(CBI)
Also, see CILT's initial contribution to the
review.
Key findings
- Policy and developments in higher
education
Starting from the Nuffield Foundation report
(2000), the review sets out a range of initiatives, projects and
reports in the field of language education, with a particular focus
on their impact on languages in HE (for details of these
projects/initiatives, please go to Paragraph 36-47).
Professor Worton argues that over the past
decade, the main focus of national strategic thinking and policy
making has been the schools sector and ‘there has been little sense
of joined up thinking about the role of foreign languages in UK
education about their importance for both the UK economy and the
UK’s global profile’. (Paragraph 68)
- Policy and developments in primary and
secondary schools
The review highlights issues in the removal of
languages as a compulsory subject at Key Stage 4 and in the primary
entitlement of languages, including decline of language take-up at
GCSE, transition and different development patterns between schools
and languages.
The review recommends that all education
sectors to ‘work together in a much more thought-through and
systematic way’. It also believes that the HE sector needs to
‘understand and seek actively to influence and shape the future
development of policy in primary and secondary schools’. (Paragraph
48).
- HEFCE in the national context
The review maintains that HEFCE has invested
significantly in foreign languages, but at the same time, ‘a
culture of uncertainty and anxiety has built up, coupled, somewhat
paradoxically, with a culture of dependency’ in the language
community (Paragraph 71).
- Languages in HE: statistical figures
Figures on student numbers, types of
programmes studied, profile of language students by fee status and
profile of staff are reviewed. While the review agrees that it is
important to consider broad trends, caution has to be taken in
interpreting the figures as ‘the overall picture conceals many
individual differences for individual languages’. (Paragraph
72).
- Languages in HE: HEFCE funding for research
(Paragraph 94-104)
The review provides an explanation to the
issue of research funding and attributes the main cause of
declining share of research funds in language-related disciplines
to the decline of number of staff submitted for assessment in
languages (paragraph 97). The review also argues that the average
real terms increase in grant per fundable active researcher in the
aggregated languages and foreign studies group between 2001 and
2008 kept pace with that in all disciplines taken together (10%,
paragraph 103).
The review suggests that MFL community should
work more pro-actively and more creatively to persuade both
government and their own institutions of the importance of their
work (paragraph 98-100).
- Languages in HE: Graduate employability
(Paragraph 107-115)
Reports from CBI, Council for Industry and
Higher Education and CILT highlights the need for language skills
in employment and employers’ concerns about the lack of language
and intercultural skills among graduates. However, this message has
not got through to HE students. This needs to be ‘urgently
addressed in universities’, with ‘evidence-based career advice’.
(Paragraph 115)
- Languages in HE: a snapshot of the
discipline
The consultation revealed a community which
feels itself to be vulnerable and under-valued, but at the same
time, which also lacks coherent and strong messages both for their
own universities and for the outside world. The review believes
that the language community should work with other departments
within their own institutions, and there should be stronger
collaborations between language departments, language centres and
business organizations.
‘Unless greater consensus across the
community is achieved and unless greater, sustainable
collaborations are established within HEIs,
between HEIs, between HEIs and both
primary and secondary schools, and between HEIs and
extra-educational organisations, the future health of the languages
discipline cannot be assured. ‘(Paragraph 123)
NB: The review identifies
issues around HE language delivery, programme development, research
challenges, knowledge transfer, tensions between the language
department and the language centre, etc. in this section. Readers
are advised to have a close reading of this section to obtain some
qualitative information of HE languages.
The decline in modern language learning in
England is a cause for real concern. (see Paragraph 195 for details
of possible implications of the decline);
The move away from ‘Single Honours Programmes’
to Joint or Combined Programmes provide HE institutions an
opportunity to develop new interdisciplinary and employment-based
courses; (Paragraph 196)
There is evidence to show that there has been
and continues to be substantial investment in languages; (Paragraph
197)
Continued strategic investment will be
essential for the next few years, but it is vital that universities
take action themselves in (Paragraph 198)
- identifying, recognising and promoting the
value of languages
- developing their international and/or
regional strategies with explicit reference to languages
provision
- aligning the development of Language
Departments/Schools with their missions and their conceptions of
the graduate attributes they seek to nurture in their
students.
It is time now that the languages sector embraced the autonomy
of universities in the UK as 'a creative and enabling force'
(Paragraph 199; for detailed recommendations to universities,
see Paragraph 200-205.)
17 Recommendations are listed in Paragraph
206-228, for considerations of the HE languages sector, the
universities, the government, funding bodies and other external
bodies.