$2.3M Australian University Alliance – Expanding European Language Learning
- February 18th, 2009
- Posted by Amelia Birnie
An Australian-first alliance between three of the country’s main universities will expand higher learning in a range of European and Asian languages.
With $2.27 million in Australian Government funding, the Brisbane-based University of Queensland (UQ), Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will pool teaching of at least nine languages.
Students at all three institutions will be able to major in Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.
FIRST OF ITS KIND
It will be the first such concentration in Australia’s Northern regions, the three universities saying the move to consolidate resources was meant to ensure major world languages would continue to be offered at tertiary level at Brisbane.
“If we applied accounting principles alone some of these languages would disappear from university curricula,†said the UQ Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Greenfield.
“Language proficiency is an asset for students and graduates competing for careers in a globalised economy, and multilingualism is vital to the economic and cultural health of Australia.â€
EU & AUSTRALIA EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
This tri-university language alliance has not yet been reviewed in the Australian section the EU Studies guide, entitled “The EU viewed from Down Underâ€.
But the cross-institutional language program accords with European Union aims to create new opportunities through education for young people around the globe. (See EUAustralia, “Learning About Europe”, 18.02.09)
Reference:
University of Queensland, Cross Institutional Students – School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, (Prospectus), Brisbane, UQ, 16.02.09.
http://www.arts.uq.edu.au, (18.02.09).
Deborah Marshall, Australia First Language Alliance, Brisbane, Griffith University, 17.12.08.
http://www.griffith.edu.au, (18.02.09).
Picture: http://www.degreedirectory.org