Every nation should require students to study at least one foreign language from the elementary school level through the university level


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Language being the medium of expression, a way to convey one’s thoughts, and to understand others’ thoughts, is not only necessary in day to day life, but is also the key to knowledge present in the language that one can peruse in. Learning a foreign language, thus, can help one access information on plethora of subjects from literature to science. Internet has made it possible for people living around the globe to freelance, where employers in one nation being adept in one language can talk to job seekers in other country knowing the same language, employ them and pay them for the services they render. However, even considering the benefits of knowing a foreign language, imposing on all the nations to make it compulsory for all the citizens from school through universities, is too much to ask for.
In the under-developed and developing nations that deal with the first world problems, people do not have enough money for education, and the government has more grave problems to deal with ranging from starvation to epidemics, making it difficult to get people to school to study. Deciding on what extra language the people should be made to study is certainly not something that they should be concentrating on in the foreseeable future.
Even if we discount the under - developed nations that can not afford the education, considering nations that can, should students be given an option to study a foreign language of their choice or nation should force them on learning a common foreign language, is another conundrum. For instance, Germany is known for car industry, and if one needs to pursue a career in making cars, learning German would be conducive to his or her aim. Likewise, America is known for it’s Silicon Valley startups, hence learning English would be beneficial to one who wants to make a career out of computers. If nation forces on a single foreign language, it should have a clear view on why the selected language was enforced. In any case, finding appropriate teachers to teach the language would be a different problem altogether.
Thus, it is better to leave the decision of whether to learn a foreign language or not on the individuals, since making it compulsory would not be daunting only on the institutions that would look after accomplishing it, but also on people whose predilections have been totally ignored.