The first Finnish polytechnics were established as late as in 1991 as the vocational sector of higher education system. This presentation focuses on polytechnics as the context of foreign language studies. Because of the great increase in international vocational and professional mobility across national and language boundaries there is a real need for intercultural vocationally and professionally oriented communication skills in everyday situations in the workplace. This means a great challenge for vocational education both at the secondary and tertiary level. The Decree on Polytechnic Studies (352/2003) states that in the course of polytechnic study the student should acquire language and communication skills which meet the needs of working life and professional development. The student must demonstrate these skills in at least one foreign language and in the second domestic language, which is Swedish for the majority of polytechnic students. As can be seen in the content of the decree, language education in polytechnics has its basis in the theoretical framework of Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) and Vocationally Oriented Language Learning (VOLL). It is not only the business of teaching specialised job-related vocabulary, it is supposed to create learning environments which see the learner's needs within a wider occupational and educational intercultural context. To put in the nutshell, the aims of language education in polytechnics are demanding. There has been a lot of local and national development work going on in the field of Finnish polytechnics to provide graduates with adequate language and communication competencies to meet the intercultural needs of their future professions in practice. In spite of this, a great deal of diversity and uneven quality has been observable in language education in polytechnics. The lack of uniformity is partly explained by the fact that each institution has the autonomy in deciding how to develop and implement its language education. The Rectors' Conference of Finnish Polytechnics has set up a Language team to support the high quality and add the uniformity of foreign language education in polytechnics. The study presented here is connected to the work of the language team. The purpose of the empirical research described in this paper was to get information about the practices used in implementing language education in Finnish polytechnics and on the basis of the information to be able to compare the correspondence among these practices and the official aims of language education in polytechnics stated in the decree and the theoretical framework of LSP and VOLL. The data of the study were collected by a survey using open-ended questions about aims, strategy, content and practices of foreign language studies. The data collection was organized during the autumn term 2003. The survey was sent by email to the Finnish polytechnics and was asked to be answered by the persons who are responsible for the language education in the polytechnic. All the polytechnics are represented in the data. The data were analysed during the spring term 2004 by using the methods of content analysis. According to the results, a great deal of both qualitative and quantitative diversity between the polytechnics can be found in the practices of language education. This can be seen for example in documentation of the aims and strategy of language education, the amount, content and timing of compulsory and voluntary language studies as well as in considering the heterogeneousness of study groups and missing competence level of some students. The aim of this paper is to raise discussion about the need and possibilities of international co-operation among the researchers and practitioners of vocationally and professionally oriented language education.