International Foundation Programme - Essay Example

1. Question One According to the statistics from the United Kingdom Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), the number of international students from Europe enrolled in UK’s institutions of higher education was about 428,225 for the year 2010-2011. This indicates that there was a considerable increase in the number of students of approximately 6% compared to 2009-2010 405,810 students. International students make up 14% of full-time first-degree students, 70% of post degree full-time students, and 48% for full-time research degrees students (UKCISA).

Among these, 26% are currently students in London, with about 11,320 of these students originating from Cyprus. Majority of the students currently studying in the UK are from the Republic of Ireland, with a student population of 16,855 (UKCISA). Majority of these students opt to study in the United Kingdom, as the standards of the education system in the UK are way above those in their countries of origin. If we look at Cyprus for instance, the state is a relatively small island with lack of competitive marketing especially in the education sector.

Therefore, UK becomes an enticing option for most of the Cypriots, as it is quite a big and powerful country. After completion of studies, a significant portion of these international students hopes to find employment opportunities within the UK labour force industry (UKCISA). 2. Question Two Because of globalization, the importance of English is growing inevitably. An analytical look and study at the world today indicates that there are 53 countries that predominantly use English as their official language or widely spoken.

Statistics indicates that there are 192 independent countries across the globe. When we put this number into math, nearly 27% of the world countries do know English. Twenty-seven percent is quite a high number when compared to variety of different languages (Georgieva and James, 2010:37). Now if we look at this research it is clear that the demand for English should be high. Strong countries such as, UK, USA and Canada are English speaking countries, which makes English even more alluring. As seen from the analysis of world in general, English is stronger in some countries than in others across the world.

If we take Europe for example, English is not that important. All rules and regulations are written in every language, which this creates more flexibility in terms of trade. English is quite important in world countries therefore nowadays countries like China are getting stronger in world market. As china now has one of the strongest economies and production power, this may make Chinese a must language rather than English. Globalization has made English such an important language that people compare it to basic skills of modern life, comparable to using a personal computer or driving a car (Georgieva and James, 2010:38). 3. Question Three International Foundation Year (IFY) helps students in their English as well as informing them of the education system of UK.

The foundation incorporates rules of writing essays and the manner in which to do presentations. The international foundation year helps the student to gather all these important information so that they can improve their English. In addition, the foundation helps the person for the 1st year of university education (Page, 2006:119). It instils a sense of discipline among the students such that they do not fail in