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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2007
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Contact: Zach Goldberg
202-225-5801 (office) |
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Holt Secures $10 Million Increase for Critical
National Security Education Programs
Bill Includes Holt’s Request to Increase Funding for
Education Initiatives to Improve U.S. Language, Culture Skills
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(Washington, D.C.) – The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, which Congress passed last week and President Bush signed Monday, contains an $8 million increase over the Bush Administration’s budget for the National Security Education Program and a $2 million increase for the National Security Language Initiative program. Congressman Rush Holt (NJ-12), Chairman of the newly-created Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, requested the funding increase to support the programs, which emphasize greater educational and cultural studies for students who later take employment in government agencies, such as the State Department, the intelligence services, or the Department of Justice.
“We must do more to ensure that our education systems – civilian and military – place a greater emphasis on language and culture skills and on producing the teachers who can transmit those language and cultural skills to others” Holt said. “I’m pleased my colleagues recognize this need and joined me in providing a real increase in funding for these programs.”
The National Security Education Program (NSEP) was designed to create a wider base of highly qualified U.S. citizens with foreign language and international abilities. NSEP is comprised of five initiatives that stem from strategic partnerships with the U.S. education community and it is intended to meet the needs of U.S. security as well as increase national competitiveness. NSEP centers on the important languages and cultures of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. NSEP offers three specific components to help achieve these goals:
• Boren Scholarships for Study Abroad allow undergraduate students to study in areas of the world critical to U.S. interests, but have been underrepresented in traditional study abroad programs.
• NSEP David L. Boren Fellowships enable graduate students to add an international and language component to their education by instituting area specialization and foreign language focus.
• The Language Flagship offers fellowships for advanced language training in Arabic, Central Asian languages, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, or Russian.
The U.S. Department of Education also began the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI), which was created to increase the number of Americans being trained in critical foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi and others. The initiative facilitates language learning as early as the kindergarten level and through to the university level.
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