To further the President’s goal under the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) to dramatically increase the number of Americans learning and teaching critical need languages, the Department of State is providing new opportunities to more than 1,000 American high school students, teachers, and undergraduate and graduate students in all 50 states to study critical languages abroad each year, and is strengthening foreign language teaching in hundreds of classrooms in the U.S. through exchanges and professional development. The Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ fiscal year 2008 budget includes $26.6 million to support NSLI programs.
On January 5, 2006, President Bush announced the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) to further strengthen national security and prosperity in the 21st century through strategic language learning. This coordinated federal government initiative focuses resources on improving language learning across the educational spectrum and emphasizes the need to promote the mastery of critical languages.
NSLI will dramatically increase the number of Americans learning critical need foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi and others through new and expanded programs from kindergarten through university and into the workforce. This initiative is coordinated by the White House, and includes the Department of State, the Department of Education, the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. |
