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Tuks phasing out Afrikaans as medium of instruction
- Thread starter Newsfeed
- Start date
I think the whites in SA should be happy with English. At least is an European language and fairly easy to learn if you grew up with Afrikaans. Imagine if you had to learn Zulu to attend an university. South Africa is becoming a joke. Everyone knows that. I wonder where do SA's universities stand in the world rankings? There was a time when Cape Town was in the top 100 but that time was f... and long ago. #SoSad #ShitHole
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2018
- Messages
- 951
Like I said, I'm pretty sure you're not interested in anything except having the last word. @Nicodeamus has contributed a lot of interesting stuff based on actual experience which you've barely acknowledged, except to dismiss it.
Exceptions don't prove rules, they disprove them. If you did any proper science you might understand this... But even then, Einstein isn't the only one, Stephen Hawking's early work (not so sure about later stuff) was pretty much entirely theoretical.
Physics abounds in theory-only stuff. Sure there is an abundance of data available in recent years, so many papers do make use of at least some observational / experimental data, but some don't. There's no rule saying they must or must not.
But physics is also not the only science. Departments like biology will rely heavily on experimental or observational data, not much "pure theory" there, but lots of what the humanities departments publish will have very little of what you might call "experimental data", though it doesn't fit nicely into what we think of as theory / practical in the hard sciences.
Edit: But that's also not really either here nor there. The point (I think) that @Nicodeamus was originally trying to make was that there are a lot of low-quality papers published at many universities around the world, which while technically novel contributions, aren't very useful. This wasn't to cast aspersions at pure theory or mathematics which doesn't appear useful immediately. I know this because I've been guilty of publishing one or two of these myself, for the purposes of graduating from my postgraduate studies.
Exceptions don't prove rules, they disprove them. If you did any proper science you might understand this... But even then, Einstein isn't the only one, Stephen Hawking's early work (not so sure about later stuff) was pretty much entirely theoretical.
Physics abounds in theory-only stuff. Sure there is an abundance of data available in recent years, so many papers do make use of at least some observational / experimental data, but some don't. There's no rule saying they must or must not.
But physics is also not the only science. Departments like biology will rely heavily on experimental or observational data, not much "pure theory" there, but lots of what the humanities departments publish will have very little of what you might call "experimental data", though it doesn't fit nicely into what we think of as theory / practical in the hard sciences.
Edit: But that's also not really either here nor there. The point (I think) that @Nicodeamus was originally trying to make was that there are a lot of low-quality papers published at many universities around the world, which while technically novel contributions, aren't very useful. This wasn't to cast aspersions at pure theory or mathematics which doesn't appear useful immediately. I know this because I've been guilty of publishing one or two of these myself, for the purposes of graduating from my postgraduate studies.
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How can I be interested in having the last word when Nicodeamus had the last post in our exchange? And I didn't even bother replying to access? You've got to be some next level loser to care about having the last word on the internet to a bunch of strangers.
"Exception that proves the rule" is a saying, duh. I use it in casual speech like most people do. I made my points, he made his, we move on.
"Exception that proves the rule" is a saying, duh. I use it in casual speech like most people do. I made my points, he made his, we move on.
- Joined
- May 21, 2018
- Messages
- 1,018
better start telling that russian country to publish in english only.. 
bwahaha
i mean what have they ever contributed to science. its so little it might as well be in english. lol!!
people need to do their thing in their mother tongue. its a very simple concept.
bwahahai mean what have they ever contributed to science. its so little it might as well be in english. lol!!
people need to do their thing in their mother tongue. its a very simple concept.
It does place Afrikaans students at a disadvantage as they were schooled in Afrikaans and suddenly have to switch to English. Other English second language speakers generally would have been schooled in English. So an Afrikaans student who knows what a "heelgetal", "gelykbenige driehoek" or "skuinssy" are, would now suddenly be assumed to know what an "integer", "isosceles triangle" and "hypotenuse" are. Luckily Afrikaans people are good at adapting so I'm sure that the students will eventually be fine.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2015
- Messages
- 430
I think the only disadvantage an Afrikaans person has in the educational space is a disadvantage they placed on themselves. I was in Afrikaans schools during my primary and high school years. I studied in English and found the only challenge was on the terminology used in Mathematics. I think it's a great idea for Government funded universities to phase out Afrikaans and focus on English tuition. If you want to study in another language, study in privately funded Afrikaans specific universities.
