Students at the University of Glasgow are up in arms over a proposal to cut six or seven of the university’s nine language programs, including a rare and rarefied Czech studies program.
In an open letter to the local Herald Scotland the students derided the proposal as a “Threat to Modern Languages” at the university and accused officials of undermining their claim to “serve the wider community by producing graduates equipped to function in a globalised world where linguistic and cultural competence are vital.”
The University says it is under “immense financial pressure” but stressed that no final decision has been made.
One member of the All-Party Parliamentary Modern Languages Group said the country is at risk of becoming trapped in a “cultural and economic monolingual cul-de-sac.”
In the university’s defence, though business and industry leaders continue to lament the lack of language skills and cultrual awareness of their employees and emphasize that this know-how is essential for business, demand for language degrees continues to decline.
The threat of ending up in a cultural and economic monolingual cul-de-sac if obscure languages like Czech are not offered sounds a bit hyperbolic, but it also sounds like a slippery slope towards deciding that foreign languages don’t matter at all. Certainly there should be at least one institution in the country where students can study Czech.
Cutting o
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