'I didn't mean to offend anybody' - Unisa lecturer after series of tweets attacking NSFAS recipients

[konfab]

My friend downloaded his textbooks for accounting (most of them anyway). 2nd / 3rd hand textbooks ftw. People in certain positions should just stay away from social media of they must comment on shyt.

Accounting textbooks are actually one of the few you have to buy new as the laws keep changing.

Things like physics textbooks though are basically timeless. One of my favourite books in my collection is a little physics textbook from the 1950s that I picked up at a second hand book shop.

 

[konfab]

Text books have always been hellishly expensive in SA - while I don’t believe “open source/free” is the way to go there should be perhaps a move to promote competition and ensure at least it’s not monopolistic.

Academic publishing is a complete farce, both for textbooks and the papers. The experts who write these books don't really do it for the money, they do for the prestige of furthering their field.

And I actually do think free content is the way things will go. If you look at machine learning, almost all the content is available on https://arxiv.org/, and I am meaning real cutting edge stuff. And most of the good papers in this field have their code published on github, such that other people can use it. Which actually makes it more scientific as anyone can easily repeat the experiments to test the claims made in the paper.

 

[rietrot]

Accounting textbooks are actually one of the few you have to buy new as the laws keep changing.

Things like physics textbooks though are basically timeless. One of my favourite books in my collection is a little physics textbook from the 1950s that I picked up at a second hand book shop.

Not the basic stuff it's all the same for accounting. Maybe just more advanced tax stuff change.

 

[rambo919]

Not the basic stuff it's all the same for accounting. Maybe just more advanced tax stuff change.

It the maddning differences between accounting and taxing that will make you turn to the dark side in the end....

 

[grok]

She isn't lying about the wigs and other "student accessories". With that being said, one really has to be mindful of what they post on their social media handles; with enough digging, social media users can drag your employer into the mess, and that is not cool.

And yet, by your own admission she wasn't lying about the wigs..

What a fracked-up world where the rabble do what they want, while the truthsayers need to be careful what they say.

 

[Vrotappel]

Telling the truth, yep that will get you in trouble. Lie and you become president.

 

[quovadis]

Academic publishing is a complete farce, both for textbooks and the papers. The experts who write these books don't really do it for the money, they do for the prestige of furthering their field.

How do you reconcile the cost of the textbooks with the claim of prestige? Someone is making money.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Her comments are probably true.

Give poor students money that is not ring fenced and they are highly unlikely to spend it on textbooks. They want to look and feel good so buy clothes and beauty products (nothing wrong with that except that the money used to achieve this state of being was not meant for that)

 

[Ninja'd]

What an ignorant woman, there are Tigers out there who don't mind to splash on wigs and other nice things, just because someone on NSFAS is wearing a wig doesn't mean the wig was bought with NSFAS money.

I'll bite, what the hell is Tiger supposed to mean nowadays?

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

How do you reconcile the cost of the textbooks with the claim of prestige? Someone is making money.

Yes, the publishers. There is a huge issue regarding academic journals which essentially receive material for free from academics but charge institutions an arm and leg to access the journals.

 

[surface]

I'll bite, what the hell is Tiger supposed to mean nowadays?

Hilarious reactions to 'tiger' Gwede Mantashe's alleged sex scandal | The Citizen

The minister has earned a new nickname from social media users.

citizen.co.za

 

[Ninja'd]

Tigers and blessers, smh. What happened to sugar daddies?

 

[TheChamp]

Tigers and blessers, smh. What happened to sugar daddies?

Not all sugar daddies are Tigers, Tito for example, he is just a stingy, conservative old man, Uncle Gweezy is the real Tiger.

 

[konfab]

How do you reconcile the cost of the textbooks with the claim of prestige? Someone is making money.

The publishers are.

As I said, the industry is an absolute dumpster fire.

 

[yebocan]

Not all sugar daddies are Tigers, Tito for example, he is just a stingy, conservative old man, Uncle Gweezy is the real Tiger.

gotta love Tito, eye on the budget , even while indulging in after hours , lights must be off, activities,

 

[ForceFate]

Not all sugar daddies are Tigers, Tito for example, he is just a stingy, conservative old man, Uncle Gweezy is the real Tiger.

Grrrrrrrrr!!!

Do tigers growl?

 

[surface]

jirre..books are really expensive here. For our 2 year old, I ordered on amazon.co.uk & asked my relative to bring bucketful of them when he visited from england. I vaguely remember gruffalo etc were about 70% more than takealot.

I wouldn't really mind paying educational levy as part of tax if government subsidizes books across the board. Boosting book reading habit is one of the things could work wonders here.

 

[Verde]

gotta love Tito, eye on the budget , even while indulging in after hours , lights must be off, activities,

You didn't read the article. Tito is quick, he had plenty of time to spend on the budget.

 

[SaiyanZ]

Mckay's tweets were in response to user Roman Cabanac who had asked how textbook sales could fall if NFSAS gave students R5 000 to spend on books.

She tweeted she wished students were copying the books, saying she was sure the money was being used on "entertainment, wigs, nail polish and other student essentials".


Mckay continued that "even before this cash payment, the students would buy the books and immediately sell them".

She further tweeted she worked in academia, and the vast majority of students she had taught were the kind that bought wigs.

What is wrong with any of what she said? Only racists see racism everywhere.

Here's the person who saw this as racism:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1189445326031200256

 

[Nerfherder]

But she didn't say ANYTHING wrong. I seriously can't see the issue here.

Its about nuance. You can't say anything anymore without things being read into it.

The obvious assumption here is that she has identified back woman as the people who use the cash for things other than textbooks. Many black woman wear wigs, so its a rather direct attack at them.

This was poor strategy on her part. She might not have understood the interpretation when she made the post.
Its possible that she has a class of mostly black woman who have wigs, are all dolled up, are on NSFAS loans but don't own textbooks. Here statement may be 100% factually correct.... but she didn't consider how she was targeting those people directly and its made her look like a biggot.