European language policy and quality assurance tools for management education

Abstract

Preparing students to become top managers in today's global economy represents a major challenge for higher education. This article outlines the statistical data showing the importance of language skills and cultural competence for Europe's economy, and places in the context of European language policy the roles to be played by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio in assuring that those entering the business world will be prepared for a plurilingual and pluricultural Europe. How can schools and universities turn students into global leaders? How do we guarantee that our European graduates meet their employers' future needs for language skills and cultural competence? How does European language policy relate to the higher education curriculum and act as a quality assurance tool? To address these issues, we will describe the international and global context our students face, and then explore how the Council of Europe's common language rating scale and its complementary language portfolio together function as tools for quality assurance as required by the Bologna process