The inequities of English use in global HE must be addressed

As a common language, English facilitates international travel, communication, innovation, diplomacy and economic and social mobility. At the same time, however, English is dividing the world into “haves” and “have-nots”, heightening socio-economic inequities at a time when nationalism and populism are on the rise.

Nowhere are the consequences more far-reaching than in education, long considered the ultimate social leveller. And perhaps nowhere are they less effectively examined.

Two recent reports are instructive. The first, The Changing Landscape of English-Taught Programmes, prepared by Studyportals for the British Council, found that beyond the “Big Four” anglophone destinations of Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, there has been a 77 per cent increase in English-taught programmes since January 2017. Europe continues to lead, while China and sub-Saharan Africa show the clearest signs of growth. Programmes are found primarily in highly ranked universities, although they are gradually spreading beyond them.

The second report, English First’s English Proficiency Index, the latest annual ranking of 112 countries where English is not the national language, found that English proficiency is high and rising in Europe and mostly improving in Latin America. Trends, though, are mixed in Asia and Africa and poor in the Middle East.

Since 2015, adults in their thirties have improved their English three times as much as those in their early twenties. The report suggests that this indicates the motivation among young adults to learn English for the career benefits. If so, it implicitly suggests that school systems are failing to adequately equip students with English language skills before they enter the workforce. The report also found a significant urban/rural divide, with adult English proficiency higher in nearly every large city compared with the surrounding region.

Europe provides fertile ground for exploring the English divide and its consequences. Universities use English to drive internationalisation and burnish their global reputations, as well as to prepare students for the global economy and, in some cases, to raise revenue. Although most Europeans begin learning English at an early age, the vocabulary and fluency needed to function at an academic level far exceed the basic conversational skills acquired in school language classes – at times from teachers who are not fluent in English.

Hence, English-taught programmes tend to favour more privileged students, who have benefited from high-quality English instruction in well-resourced schools, as well as from private tutoring and family trips abroad. Others have difficulty mining the depths of their English reading assignments at university, while their writing similarly lacks substance and nuance.

This academic shift has fallen equally hard on professors. Faculty hiring and promotions are increasingly based on citations in indexed English-language journals. But for those who lack the skills to teach and write effectively in English, producing a publishable manuscript is time-consuming, at times demanding lengthy negotiations with editors and reviewers. Some turn to “literacy brokers”, who charge hefty fees unaffordable to younger and less economically secure scholars. And where higher education is state-funded, as is common in Europe, publishing solely in English denies taxpayers from less privileged classes access to important information affecting their daily lives.

Heated debates in France, Italy and the Netherlands have raised many of these concerns, with mixed results. In 2013, French intellectuals and others sparred over the Fioraso law, which loosened restrictions on university teaching in languages other than French; by 2021, France had jumped to fourth place in Europe (excluding the UK) in its number of English-language programmes.

In 2017, the Italian Constitutional Court struck down a plan to switch all graduate programmes to English at the prestigious Politecnico di Milano. Despite that, the Italian government has announced that proposals for research funds, even in the humanities, must be written in English, with oral interviews also conducted in English. Aside from its questionable legality, this mandate is especially confounding given that English proficiency among Italian adults is now the lowest in western Europe.

Even English-proficient northern European countries, which spearheaded English-taught programmes, now question whether they have overreached. The Netherlands has considered limiting such programmes, thereby reducing the intake of international students. Denmark has slowly and selectively gone in that direction, though with rising warnings about business needs for foreign talent. 

These moves are informative as English-taught programmes gain momentum in countries such as China, with only moderate English proficiency, and in unranked institutions. They suggest that before moving forward, policymakers and university leaders should first consider how to mitigate the inequities. In the short term, that could involve intensive and ongoing English language training for schoolteachers, and English support for university students and professors. In the longer term, it could require national plans, with English instruction beginning in all primary schools regardless of their locations or intakes.

At the same time, universities must strike a reasonable balance between English-taught programmes and those taught in the national language, to prepare students for both the global and domestic economies. They must also reward scholarly production in native languages, to broaden the knowledge base beyond a narrow anglophone perspective.

This calls for acknowledging the role that languages play in shaping identity, promoting opportunity and disseminating knowledge in a world that is struggling to reckon with past injustices while striving towards a more equitable and inclusive present.

Rosemary Salomone is Kenneth Wang professor of law at St John’s University – New York. Her newly published book is The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language (Oxford University Press, 2021).