ABSTRACT
The aim of the chapter is to determine whether the current education of interpreters in the Republic of Slovenia responds to the needs of the society. The chapter first briefly outlines the development of the education of Slovene interpreters. Second, by drawing on the results of a nationwide survey of language-support needs in Slovene healthcare institutions from 2016, the language needs on the Slovene society are outlined. These needs are then compared to the results provided by a nationwide survey of interpreters and sworn interpreters from 2020 (n = 123) focusing on language combinations they offer and identifying different settings in which they work. The results of this comparison show that there is a serious mismatch between the needs of the society and the existing language profiles of professional interpreters in the market, which results in ad hoc interpreters being used for almost all the languages of newly arrived migrants with negative consequences for society at large. The chapter concludes with the description of educational efforts aimed at remedying the situation: first, a short specialisation program for sworn interpreters introduced in 2018, and second, the education of teachers of community interpreters for Albanian, Arabic, and Persian which took place from 2019 to 2020.
