Dean of Arts questions lack of political will to continue funding for language programmes

Disclaimer: This text was translated using machine translation / AI and post-edited by Maria Nielsen Pedersen

Language programmes at the country's universities have been struggling for several years with low application numbers and high dropout rates, leading to the closure of several language programmes. On this basis, in 2021, a unanimous Danish Parliament decided to allocate 40 million DKK to the country’s universities for “a targeted boost of German and French in higher education degree programmes”.

The fund was distributed over a three-year period from 2022 to 2024, resulting in Aarhus University receiving a total of 7.5 million DKK. The funds have been used to enhance the quality of German and French degree programmes by providing more teaching and developing language courses, allowing students who are not majoring in languages to improve their language skills.

At the turn of the year, the fund expired, and no political initiative has been taken to continue the support for the language programmes, which puzzles Dean of Arts Maja Horst. The dean is fully aware that it was a three-year fund, but she emphasises that the goal must be to find a permanent solution for the language programmes.

“The language programmes cannot survive unless there is a permanent solution for funding these programmes,” says Maja Horst.

“The problem is that language teaching is like laboratory teaching – the classes can’t be too big, and there needs to be a lot of interaction with the teacher. The programmes should receive rate 3 or rate 2 funding, or be granted permanent additional funding to compensate for the underfunding that has occurred as language programmes have shrunk and become smaller departments over the years,” she explains. The rates that the dean refers to are the three funding levels that university programmes receive. Natural science, health science, and technical degree programmes typically receive the highest level, rate 3, while humanities and social science degree programmes usually receive the low rate 1.  

In October, Maja Horst, together with Dean Kirsten Busch Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen, appealed to politicians to ensure a permanent solution by including language programmes in the Finance Act or increasing their funding. They expressed this in an opinion piece published in the online newspaper Altinget. In an open letter, Brian Arly, chair of DM University, also urged the Danish Parliament parties to continue financial support for language programmes. Despite these appeals, the funds have not been extended.

“There's a lot of political talk, but not much action,” says Maja Horst.

AU buys itself more time

At Aarhus University, the experiences gained over the past three years are considered too valuable to abandon now that the funding has ceased. Therefore, the senior management team has decided to finance the continuation of language courses in 2025, while the Faculty of Arts will finance the quality improvement of German and French programmes in 2025. But this is only interim financing, says the dean:

“We need to secure a proper solution; we can't keep jumping from pillar to post.”

At the same time, the dean points out that they are awaiting a report from the language strategy group, which the faculty established in 2024 to develop future language degree programmes.

Popular language courses

The language courses have been quite popular among students. Throughout all three years they have been offered, demand has far exceeded the number of available spots. However, the numbers have declined in recent years, partly due to less marketing. In the autumn semester last year, 500 students applied for the 187 available spots, but only 109 out of the 187 enrolled students completed the courses. AU requires students to attend at least 75 percent of the course sessions to pass.

When evaluating completion rates, it’s important to consider that students are taking these courses alongside their full-time studies and possibly student jobs, says the dean.

One of the students who has taken advantage of AU's language courses is Hekmatullah Akbari. He is a law student and has taken the German language course both as a summer course and alongside his law studies and student job at the law firm Plesner. Although it has been tough at times and resulted in long days, he believes he has benefited from the course.

“I've learnt German to a level that I can use professionally in my student job, and it makes a difference when travelling in German-speaking countries. I recently visited Austria, and I could speak effortlessly without needing to switch to English.”

Hekmatullah Akbari studied German at the B-level in upper secondary school. After taking the language courses, he recently completed a test at the Goethe-Institute and received a B2 certificate for his German language skills.

“It would be a shame if AU had to close the courses. In a small country like Denmark, we need people with diverse educational backgrounds who can also speak foreign languages.”

This year, AU offers German, French, and Spanish at basic and intermediate levels, as well as Russian, Chinese, and Japanese at beginner level.

An attempt to save what we have  

Maja Horst explains that the two initiatives made possible by the political funding – the language courses and the quality improvements for language programmes – address two different issues.

“The first issue is that some students haven't received enough language training in upper secondary education to use it professionally, and that it’s generally beneficial to supplement your skills with language. For example, it can be advantageous for an engineer to know German or for a political scientist to know French to work in the EU,” says Maja Horst. She also envisions that the model could be expanded to include other competencies beyond language, such as business acumen.

She continues:

“The second issue is about ensuring that we can continue to train teachers for upper secondary school and universities. We want to increasingly use language technology solutions to support language teaching. We’re not looking to replace language teachers with technology, but rather to use it to provide students with better opportunities to practise languages, leading to deeper language learning. However, there aren't ready-made systems available yet, so they need to be developed within the language environments.”

“We have many talented language teachers at AU, so how do we best support them and save what we currently have so that nothing more is lost?” says the dean.