Language Policy and the Internationalization of Higher Education in the Baltic Countries

Abstract

In the framework of the internationalization and globalization of higher education and competition for international students, the paper examines how language policy in higher education shapes the provision of study programs in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It concludes that study programs in the Baltic states mostly follow the convention of a monolingual curriculum offered in the official national language, or Russian, as the largest minority language in the Baltic states, or English. Comparative analysis of international student flows also shows that while students from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are leaving to study in predominantly English-speaking countries, which dominate in the global competition for international students, language policy laws in the Baltic states, except for Estonia, remain protective of the use of the official language in public higher education.