English, the “lingua franca” of future European education

The 13th century saw the establishment of the first universities in the Western World. At that time, the language used for communication was Latin. This provided the opportunity for both professors and scholars to teach and study at different universities across Europe. Manuscripts were also written in Latin, thus allowing the sharing and the rapid distribution of knowledge. It was the beginnings of a common Western academic world.

Seven centuries later, we find ourselves in analogous circumstances. Globalisation has turned English into the "lingua franca", the language mostly used worldwide in business and academia. According to September 2005 figures published by "Internet World Stats", the four main languages used worldwide in internet are, respectively, English (31,7% of users), Chinese (13%), Japanese (8,1%) and Spanish (6,4%).

Eric Beerkens, a regular commentator in our blog, raises the question about whether multilingualism is a threat to the implementation of the Bologna process in Europe. I do not believe so. It is foreseeable that those European universities that aim at attracting foreign students will offer courses in English. But part of the richness of European educational offerings will consist of learning a second or a third language and a different culture.

Given the pre-eminence of English in academia, I believe that the first beneficiaries of the flow of students after Bologna will be universities based in English-speaking countries. However, the first European Masters in Management Rankings recently published by the Financial Times include only 6 universities from the UK and Ireland out of the top 25. Is this evidence that the language spoken in a country will not be a critical factor for choosing a university, provided that the teachings are run in English?

Comments

[Eric]

I am of course not relating the issue of quality to language. Even countries with very complex languages (like Finland and Hungary) could have been on number 1 and 2 in this ranking. I am however relating language to popularity or (in business language) to possible market shares of the international higher education market.

If we sort the same ranking table for the amount of international students (as a measure of international popularity), the numbers 1 to 6 contain 5 universities from the UK. Furthermore, the large language areas such as French and German, score better than the smaller ones.

I think that supports the hypothesis that increased opportunities for mobility (and that is made possible by Bologna) will favour the UK universities and to a lesser extent the large countries or language areas (French, German, Spanish and maybe Russian). Whether this is a short term effect or continues on the long run remains to be seen. However, I do think that universities in the small Nordic countries and the Netherlands will respond to this by increasing their number of programmes taught in English. Actually, they are already doing that...

[Fernando Jiménez]

El uso de un idioma en un programa de dirección va a ser una declaración de intenciones de la orientación que va a tener dicho programa. Un programa multicultural, que cuente con profesores y alumnos de diferentes paises, va a tener que impartirse en inglés. De otra forma limitará claramente la posibilidad de acceso tanto a profesores como a alumnos. Por su parte aquellos programas centrados "en la plaza", se deberán impartir en el idioma foráneo, ya que los posibles alumnos extrajeros si estarán interesados en perfeccionar el idioma y conocer la cultura del lugar donde van a desarrollar su actividad profesional.

Bajo mi punto de vista ambas prespectivas no son excluyentes ni mucho menos, sin embargo si parece que van a ser preeminentes los programas impartidos en inglés, dado que van a atender a un nicho de mercado más amplio y ofrecen una mayor empleabilidad a sus graduados.