Explains the relationship between international trade and language competence in Australia and describes programs to enable students to spend part of their study time learning European Community (EC) languages in countries other than their own. Also discusses the status of foreign language learning in the United Kingdom. (SM)

Examines the position of Tamil as the language of an ethnic minority in Malaysia and Singapore, placing the issue of Tamil and language maintenance within the larger sociolinguistic milieu in the two countries and drawing conclusions about the role of language policy and planning in the determination of linguistic outcomes. (SM)

The most outstanding characteristic of language in education policy for South Asia (SA) is its multilingualism. All through recorded history the seven countries that constitute SA have been multilingual. For at least the first two decades of their existence as sovereign states the large nation states of SA failed to take into account this…