Inside Higher Ed has an
article about some of the results of the budget cuts to less-commonly-taught foreign language programs in the US. I've mentioned before that we've been hit hard by cuts to foreign language education and it truly blows my mind that someone thought it was financially sound to cut $50 million for these languages, especially when we're talking about a $12 trillion dollar deficit. Maybe the Department of Defense ought to pick up the tab for these programs since they seem to have no trouble getting the money they need. Here's a quote detailing some of the results of the cuts.
The Language Resource Centers estimate that the number of teachers
they train this year will drop 35 percent, from just over 17,000 to
11,130. If the cuts are extended, about 9,300 teachers will be trained
in 2012-13, according to the survey, Kazanjian [a consultant with the Coalition for International Education] said.
The number of
federally designated "priority languages" taught to teachers will drop
from 51 to 15 over two years, the centers estimate. Research on 35
priority languages will be dropped, including Pashto, Tajik, Turkish and
Urdu, Kazanjian said. Capacity in Arabic, Chinese and Russian -- the
most popular priority languages -- will be severely limited.
The
survey of National Resource Centers isn’t complete. But many of the
least commonly taught languages will probably be eliminated, Kazanjian
said. “A number of them have engaged in stopgap measures for the first
year of the cut,” she said. “If these cuts are going to continue into
fiscal year 2012, something drastic will have to happen.”
The
impacts of the cuts vary. By federal standards, the Title VI program is
small: the cuts this year total $50 million, and few campuses lost as
much as $1 million. But the money was a “linchpin” that drove
universities and private donors to invest in language, Kazanjian said.
“The money is not very much, but it’s actually had a multiplier effect,”
she said. “Once you pull that plug, it starts to unravel.”
2 comments:
Really sad.
Um, yeah. It's hard to see the real logic in this move. Way to cut the things that actually solve problems (like increasing cultural understanding), and continue alienating and killing people instead.
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