A lot of things have me thinking about this question now. Particularly a presentation I am doing tomorrow as part of an OpenMed event in Cairo. So much discourse around self-directed, lifelong, autonomous learning is dependent on learners using the internet, and the majority of content online (especially of course academic content) is in English. 

• Is developing more Open Educational Resources (OERs) in different languages or translating OERs a solution? But who decides which content gets translated/adapted? 
• What are the cultural and political values behind English-language content? Is a different solution for non-Anglo people (like me) to create English-languge content from a non-Anglo perspective? Remember how different 1973 war looks in Arabic Wikipedia vs English Wikipedia  

The question for me, most fundamentally is: if you had a limited amount of money to empower people (teachers, learners) to become lifelong learners using digital possibilities, would you invest more money in teaching them English, or more money creating Arabic content? (speaking about my own region now)

How about going one better: invest in teaching them English ; ask them to use that learning to create Arabic content. Two birds with one stone.

Hmmm
Added later: Robin DeRosa shared this, so I thought I would add it

College students want to kill foreign language requirements. Tell them “nein”! H/t @actualhamhttps://t.co/HHOQX1Liup via @slate

— ℳąhą Bąℓi مها بالي (@Bali_Maha) November 29, 2016