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Academy and business aim to reforge language supply chain</h1></div><p class="" style="border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:dotted;border-bottom-color:rgb(48,48,48);list-style:none;margin:4px 0px 20px;padding:0px 0px 7px;font-size:10px;line-height:1;color:rgb(153,153,153);text-transform:uppercase;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">
<span class="">3 OCTOBER 2013</span> | <span class="" style="font-weight:bold">BY <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/matthew-reisz/1022.bio" rel="author" style="color:rgb(20,104,179);text-decoration:none">MATTHEW REISZ</a></span></p>
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Born Global research looks to bridge gap between supply and demand</p></div><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
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<img alt="Red and metal chain links" src="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Pictures/web/i/h/y/red_metal_chain_link_450.jpg" style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: block; max-width: 100%;"></p>
</div><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">The British Academy has joined forces with the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Education and Employers Taskforce and leading businesses to steer a major research programme designed to rescue the country from “a colourless monoglot future”.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Born Global: Rethinking Language Policy for 21st Century Britain, which will run until July 2015, is designed to bridge the yawning gap between “years of declining capability in language competence in education” and “recurrent reports of high levels of employer demand for language skills”.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">It hopes to “inform government language policy development, the current national curriculum review for England and future developments in higher education language curricula and assessment”.</p>
<h3 style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 8px;padding:0px;font-size:1.8em;line-height:1.333">‘Co-owners’ of education</h3><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
At the university level, the numbers studying languages have been falling for years.</p><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
Ucas figures for “placed applicants by subject group” show a decline of close to 11 per cent for European languages between 2009 and 2013 (from 4,130 to 3,680) and around 16.5 per cent for non-European languages (from 1,340 to 1,120).</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Richard Hardie, non-executive chair of financial services firm UBS, is chair of the Born Global steering group.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Launching the project at the company’s London headquarters on 23 September, he spoke of “the need to fix the language supply chain into education” and for employers to become “co-owners of the educational </p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">curriculum”.</p><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
The data now being gathered by Born Global should certainly help “rescue future generations from a colourless monoglot future”, he added.</p><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
Principal researcher Bernardette Holmes, a programme director at the University of Cambridge’s Language Centre, noted that the British language deficit meant that UK employers often looked overseas when recruiting vital staff.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">The scholar asked: “Are our young people only fit for lower-grade jobs?”</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">With the British Chambers of Commerce wanting to “ensure that the next generation of business owners are ‘born global’”, it was time “to make the rhetoric count” through “a research-informed strategy”, she argued.</p>
<h3 style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 8px;padding:0px;font-size:1.8em;line-height:1.333">Compare and contrast</h3><p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
Born Global will consult with “a representative sample of employers over a two-year period” in order to “elaborate a conceptual framework to map language competence, identifying the range of knowledge, skills and understanding required to function effectively from administrative to executive levels”, according to an information pack on the project.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">It will also follow a sample of young people with language qualifications at GCSE level, A level and university, and “compare their employment outcomes in areas such as earnings and employment periods” with people from similar backgrounds and attainment who lack such qualifications.</p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><a href="mailto:matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com" style="color:rgb(20,104,179);text-decoration:none">matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com</a></p>
<p style="border:0px;list-style:none;margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;font-size:1.4em;line-height:1.428;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/academy-and-business-aim-to-reforge-language-supply-chain/2007785.article">http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/academy-and-business-aim-to-reforge-language-supply-chain/2007785.article</a><br>
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