In the Southern Mediterranean, just 93 Kilometres South of Sicily and 288 Kilometres North of Tunisia, is the little island of Malta, where cultures have been meeting for thousands of years, and communication is part of the very bedrock of the island’s character.

Due to the widespread use of English in Malta, students quickly find the opportunity to practise their new language skills; from buying a sandwich to taking a bus, to going to the cinema, English is used everywhere, so students can take the day’s lessons out into the real world, and gain confidence in the use of spoken English while enjoying time with friends, and visiting a new country. The use of host-families; where students stay with a local Maltese family during their course, provides another setting for communication in English, and further challenges the students to use what they have learned.

An unwillingness by European countries to encourage and pay for the educational needs of its best students – and to build elite educational institutions for them – is causing a dangerous decline in the number and quality of European engineers and scientists, according to a senior Microsoft executive.

The executive, Craig Mundie, said in an interview Thursday that there was strong growth in the availability of highly qualified engineers in countries like China, but that he was not seeing the same in Europe. “The number is falling,” Mundie said, “but also the quality of the training is falling behind the world standard.”

Mundie, Microsoft’s chief technical officer, predicted that the situation “could be a serious problem downstream in the society here.”

Mundie spoke from Brussels where he met with European Union officials including Janez Potocnik, science and research commissioner, and Günter Verheugen, commissioner for enterprise and industry.

Mundie’s remarks about the educational shortfall came amid growing anxiety in Europe that elite educational standards are falling behind those in countries like the United States.

Europe has only two universities – Cambridge and Oxford – listed  in the world’s top 10, according to a widely cited list of the world’s best research institutions produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

In Britain, where university education has traditionally been free, the government is introducing tuition fees to increase funding and raise standards.

In the interview, Mundie emphasized that Microsoft was increasingly hiring researchers from emerging economies like India, China and Russia. Microsoft now employs 1,800 Chinese; 1,200 Indians; and 800 Russians in its research and development divisions at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters, he said.

Microsoft employs about 12,000 people in Europe. Its biggest development center is in Copenhagen, with 700 employees, after which come development center in Ireland, innovation centers in Germany, Italy and Spain.

Part of the problem, Mundie said, is Europe’s “stratified” approach to education. Citing as examples countries like the United States, Japan, China and India, he said that “their whole educational system tends to funnel the strongest students to strongest institutions.”

In Europe, “there seems to be much more ambivalence” Mundie said, “about whether there are elite places.”

The European Commission said it agreed with Mundie’s assessment. In the current round of budget negotiations, it is demanding that member states spend more on high-tech research and development, and it is promoting the idea of centers of excellence.

“This is exactly our point,” said Antonia Mochan, a spokeswoman for Potocnik. “Europe is falling behind because we do not invest enough in education research and innovation. We need to do that.”

In the EU budget for 2007 to 2013, the commission has asked member countries to earmark 68 billion, or $83 billion, for research and development. Of that total, 10.5 billion would be spent on a European Research Council that would distribute money to encourage “blue sky” thinking.