[EDLING:2224] Language Gap at US Embassy in Iraq

[Francis M Hult]

Via lgpolicy...

>  http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/01/2007010804n.htm
> Monday, January 8, 2007
> 
> Language Gap at Embassy in Iraq Figures in Call for More Support for
> Programs
> 
> By BETH MCMURTRIE
> 
> The eye-catching ad begins with a giant numeral six, then continues:
> "Number of fluent Arabic speakers in the United States Embassy in Iraq."
> Solutions for Our Future, a coalition of higher-education and other
> organizations, is using that startling fact to encourage increased federal
> spending on foreign-language programs. The full-page ad, which appears
> today in Roll Call, a newspaper that is widely read on Capitol Hill, goes
> on to say: "It's hard to represent America's interests abroad when we
> can't speak the language. While the U.S. has a number of programs that are
> ideally suited to increasing America's foreign-language competency ...
> federal support for them has lagged for years. Increased investment in
> these programs today will yield big and lasting dividends."
> 
> The organization pulled the embassy data from the recent report of the
> Iraq Study Group, which noted that of the 1,000 people who work at the
> embassy, only 33 speak Arabic, and only six of them speak it fluently.
> "Sometimes you find a statistic that so perfectly illustrates a broader
> point, you'd be foolish not to draw attention to it," said Terry W.
> Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the
> American Council on Education. The council manages Solutions for Our
> Future, which was created last year to enhance higher education's image
> with the public.
> 
> According to the organization, the amount of money spent on key
> foreign-language and area-studies programs by the U.S. Department of
> Education has dropped 30 percent, in real dollars, over the past 40 years.
> The relatively small number of college students who graduate each year
> fluent in a second language, particularly one deemed critical to the
> country's economic and political interests, such as Mandarin or Arabic, is
> widely recognized to be a problem. Last January, President Bush announced
> a new National Security Language Initiative, which was to provide
> $114-million to train students in these critical languages, from
> kindergarten through college.
> 
> Mr. Hartle said on Sunday that the ad was timed to run at the start of the
> new Democrat-controlled Congress but that he believes both parties are
> equally receptive to its message. "I think the problem we've had is that
> the last two years have been exceptionally partisan," he said. "So we're
> hoping in a new Congress, with a broader commitment to bipartisanship, it
> might be possible to pick up on this issue, where Democrats and
> Republicans alike see this as an urgent national theme." "Foreign-language
> expertise is one of those things that if the government invests a dollar,"
> he added, "they will get a definable product out in a few years' time."
> Mr. Hartle said that there are no immediate plans to run the ad again but
> that it would be made available to colleges and universities to use as
> they wish.
> 
> http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/01/2007010804n.htm