Learn the language before coming to the UK
Gordon Brown is ruling that medium-skilled migrants from outside the EU must speak and understand English. The “highly skilled” already have to; the unskilled, it seems, may remain uncomprehending. The Home Secretary adds enthusiastically that it will help integration if we “expect people coming through the skilled and slightly less-skilled route to actually be able to speak English”.
Well, duh! This is good news (though met with whingeing from employers who fear for their cheap labour, and from Tories who find it not fierce enough). It would be even better news if there were some mechanism to put the same onus on EU citizens who plan to stay, but since that is impossible we could at least refrain from gratuitously featherbedding them by putting up diversion signs in Polish to prevent lorry drivers “coming into conflict with road workers”.
Read more: Language
Related posts:
- Why learn a foreign language? “… [E]ffective communication and successful negotiations with a foreign...
- “Foreigners must learn the language before working in our country”London, UK, 4th March 2008: Foreigners should be made to...
- The language of ignoranceIt has become a common misconception, amongst a large population...
- Learn Japanese before getting visaJapan will consider tightening its long-term visa conditions by requiring...
- Australia puts migrants to culture testMigrants hoping to become Australian citizens will soon have to...
Entries (RSS)