Annual Report 2024 - Flipbook - Page 147
Goal 4 - Moving Forward
The publication of the ‘Languages Connect Interim Review Report and Implementation
Plan to 2026’ is an opportunity for PPLI to reengage with the enterprise agencies to
coordinate messaging around the importance of foreign languages to client companies.
PPLI will also need to work with these agencies to access companies in the enterprise
sector for the purpose of research, in order to determine the value of language skills and
language learning for employers.
A more cross-sectoral approach to implementation should be adopted. The importance of
language learning in the development of future skills required by the workforce, such as
intercultural competence, empathy, and adaptability, so important in the context of global
citizenship, need to be acknowledged in the context of higher education and enterprise.
Ireland needs global citizens who are multilingual with strong intercultural competence,
and who can navigate diverse cultural contexts, and this message needs to be embedded
beyond school. While importing language skills from abroad has been used to plug skills
shortages this does little to enhance the linguistic or intercultural skills of the wider
national workforce.
- PPLI ANNUAL REPORT 2024 -
147
