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By Archie Pollock and Nannette Ripmeester. Learning a foreign language is on many an individual’s bucket list. To converse in a language other than your mother tongue can feel tremendously exciting and rewarding, and above all, it can dramatically improve your experience when visiting a country which speaks the language you have learned. The option to study abroad comes as a welcome opportunity to take on this challenge, but are students and universities doing enough to learn/teach the language to a useful level? More...

By Caio H Montanheiro Goncalves and Luciana Romano Morilas. Brazilian universities have faced language challenges during the last decades of internationalisation because Portuguese is not a worldwide spoken language, despite being the only language spoken in this huge country. In Brazil, no one needs to speak any other language. Therefore, if you visit the country, you’d better learn some basic expressions, or hire an interpreter. In universities, this prospect changes a little but international students will still have to dedicate some time to learning the language. More...

By Suad Alhalwachi. A fourth article in the Forum series on the role of language in international education, this piece looks at the situation of languages in the Middle East. Some language learning opportunities beyond English courses are beginning to open up, but it is slow progress, and there is not a great push for learning other foreign languages. The demand may exist, but the means to undertake additional learning are sparse. More...

By Franka van den Hende. This is a story about a language policy in progress at a classical university in the Netherlands. The policy is currently being written and debated. This is being done at the request the Executive Board, and based on needs indicated by students, academic and administrative staff.  We intend to have a future proof language policy and a working document by early 2014. With this article, we hope to share our experiences and learn from others. More...

By Andrey Kitashov. “Thank God we speak Russian” someone replied in response to a Facebook post on English-language citations as a criterion for international university rankings. This reaction embraces virtually everything that the ‘internationalised’ educator faces in Russia. Not a surprise: Russians are reasonably proud of their history, rich in cultural and scientific achievements, all clearly documented in Russian. But, what about the rest of the world, one could argue? That is where the problem seems to be rooted. More...

By Emmanuel Haze. The role of language in international education: a fascinating and hotly debated topic. Should English be the global lingua franca? Are native languages at risk from dying out? The recent issue of EAIE Forum magazine brought the language debate to EAIE members’ coffee tables, and now we’re bringing the discussion to the web! This week we will feature perspectives from six different countries or world regions, with each post highlighting a different take on the topic. First, up: España. More...

By Jack Uldrich. Global futurist and keynote speaker at this year’s EAIE Conference in Istanbul, Jack Uldrich, shares his predictions of the future facing higher education with this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Foresight 20/20. Using a fictional dialogue between a father and his daughter, Jack aptly demonstrates the growing divide between generations and their expectations of learning, painting a vivid picture of higher education in the near future. More...

By Kathleen Van Heule. After almost two years of negotiations with the European Council and the European Parliament, the European Commission is ready to launch Erasmus+ on 1 January 2014. With an agreed budget of 14.7 billion (an increase of 40% on current levels), the programme is set to run for the next seven years. What does the new programme really mean for higher education? Here’s a guide to the final agreements and implications of this highly anticipated programme. More...

By Jane Knight. What does the future hold for internationalisation? A distinction can be made between a probable and preferable future. The former takes a reactive approach to the cultural, social, economic, political and academic contexts affecting the international dimensions of higher education. The latter focuses on a strategic, more interventionist approach, ensuring that governments and universities take the necessary steps to shape and monitor the preferred direction of international higher education. More...

By Stefan Wellens. What constitutes African higher education? Does it involve a European-like system? What challenges and opportunities is it facing?  How should European higher education institutions (HEIs) interact with African HEIs? In December, a special event is taking place in Brussels to discuss these very questions. The seminar, ‘For mutual gain: Euro-African cooperation in higher education’ will focus specifically on cooperation between European and African HEIs. More...