Inside Higher Ed article "Bush Push on 'Critical' Foreign Languages" states:
On Thursday, President Bush and a bevy of government officials — including the secretaries of state, education and defense — announced a wide ranging plan to enhance the foreign language skills of American students....
Under the plan, President Bush will request $114 million in the 2007 fiscal year, with approximately 75 percent of that amount coming through the State and Education Departments, for the National Security Language Initiative, and the Department of Defense would allocate more than $750 million during the 2007 to 2011 fiscal years to groom skilled personnel in languages deemed critical....
According to the Department of Education, fewer than 8 percent of undergraduates in the United States take foreign language courses, and fewer than 2 percent study abroad in any given year. Foreign language degrees account for approximately 1 percent of undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States. The college presidents whom Bush addressed are in Washington for meetings with federal officials, continuing today, on a range of international education issues.
Department of State officials stressed the need to have more people master “critical” languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi. Officials, noting that fewer than 2 percent of American students currently study any of the target languages, said that they are critical to national security and cultural understanding.
The Department of Defense's press release gives a little more detail on the DoD funding:
The department will allocate more than $750 million over the next five years to increase personnel with critical language abilities, Chu said. The department also will provide another $25 million to be used by the president's National Security Language Initiative, he said.
DoD's language capabilities will be expanded beyond what's been previously available at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, Calif., Chu said. DoD will forge partnerships with universities and colleges with grants through affiliated ROTC programs to assist them in teaching languages thought critical to national security. A total of 1,322 U.S. colleges and universities offer primary or associated ROTC programs.
DoD also will provide the resources to expand teaching needed languages at the nation's military service academies, Chu said. For example, the Army is expected to increase the numbers and training of those servicemembers who speak a critical language as part of the 09L military occupational specialty, he said.
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