Post-16 (Further & Higher Education)

Higher Education Modern Languages in Wales : the current picture

In Wales, as in the rest of the UK, Modern Languages at university degree level is in a fragile condition.

• 10 HEI's offer modern foreign languages to some level (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, UWIC, Glamorgan, Lampeter, Newport, NEWI, Swansea, Trinity College).
• Only 5 (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Swansea and UWIC) at full honours degree and/or PG level.

• Glamorgan and Lampeter have both pulled out of language degree teaching.
  

Devolution, however, has given the Welsh Assembly Government power over the teaching and learning side of Higher Education.

• The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), on behalf of the Assembly, determines levels of funding for teaching overall and for individual subject categories.

HEIs are autonomous bodies. However, through the use of funding, particular initiatives and guidance, the Assembly and HEFCW seek to achieve particular priorities and developments for the sector in Wales.

• Working through HEFCW, the Assembly government has begun to tackle the decline in language learning at HE level.
• A thorough strategic review of HE ML teaching, at all levels, specialist and non-specialist is now under way (see 'Strategic Review of Modern Languages at HE Level'), in which CILT Cymru are playing a leading part.
  
  
• A partnership has been established between the UK HE Academy/LTSN Languages Linguistics and Area Studies Subject Centre and CILT Cymru (See 'CILT Cymru/LLAS partnership')
• It will provde a forum for teaching staff which cuts across language, institutional and subject discipline boundaries.

The future of foreign language study at HE level will depend on collaboration at different levels, in different areas of the education system. CILT Cymru is working to draw Welsh HEI's together into that common effort.