> Ik ben niet het soort flamingant die met een Frans brood onder zijn arm zal sterven van de honger,…
Hah this is a new one for me
> onder meer omdat de masteropleiding burgerlijk ingenieur anders nergens in Vlaanderen nog in het Nederlands zou worden aangeboden. Het academisch aanbod moet “toegankelijk en democratisch blijven”, zegt minister van Onderwijs Ben Weyts (N-VA).
It’s scary that this muppet thinks you can be a competent engineer these days – or pretty much anything else for that matter – without a proper grasp of your domain in English.
> Weyts. “Ik ben niet het soort flamingant die met een Frans brood onder zijn arm zal sterven van de honger, maar onze Vlaamse jongeren hebben wel recht op een opleiding in hun eigen taal.”
Does he really think missing out on the state-of-the-art while waiting for silly translations, is doing our students a favor?
Of course not, this is still about that stupid Leuven vlaams, from more than half a century ago
> Het heeft heel lang geduurd voor het Nederlands aanvaard werd als een volwaardige onderwijstaal, een wetenschappelijke taal, een academische taal. Dat mogen we nu niet zomaar verkwanselen.
February is gone. Tournée Minerale has passed. It’s obvious Ben Weyts has been drinking again. What a <censored>.
I’m an American with several friends teaching at universities in the Netherlands. It’s a whole different world there. (My humanities friends are all very conversational in dutch with C1 or above, but they’re no longer obliged to teach long term in Dutch. My scientist friends are all happy with B1 certificates and their whole degree program is already all English.)
De N-VA komt met de ene bad take achter de andere tegenwoordig. Dutch is holding us back!
Weyts projecting his insecurities so hard that we’re reaching USA levels of politics lmao
As a “burgerlijk ingenieur” student at the KUL, I’m not in favor of giving all masters in English. The problem is that the English courses are often given by the same professors that give the Dutch courses. And surprisingly, their English is often not good enough to be teaching in English. Combining this with the poor English skill of students is a bad idea.
I don’t understand why everybody always wants to speak English
Anyone claiming that we need English masters in order to prevent our level plummeting has clearly never had to attend lectures given by professors who clearly are more at ease in their mother tongue. (which makes sense) In general at uni my Dutch spoken courses were of a higher level. I took two classes of the same professor who is/was also a professor at Stanford. And even he openly admitted that his courses in Dutch were of a higher level.
Even in “Dutch” masters the textbooks are often in English and you are expected to read English papers. The difference is in the language the professor speaks and the language in which you need to write your exams and papers.
The reason universities are pursuing English masters is the fact that international students pay way better and it’s a way for them to make ends meet.
So I have no problem with Weyts not accepting dissolving the Dutch masters but he should also acknowledge that their are often (financial) reasons for our universities to opt to organize only English speaking masters and if he wants to fix that he and the Flemish government should take a look at their university funding.
I genuinely wonder if this would cause problems with the usual academia way of working. There’s a lot of invited scholars and important academics that don’t speak dutch and end up in flemish universities… wouldn’t this idea make bringing this people more complicated?
Why are people angry that they want to Dutch classes, in a Dutch university, in a Dutch speaking region?
No offense, but I am not sure Dutch has been accepted as a scientific language anywhere. In higher education, professors are trained researchers, and just like centuries ago Latin was the language of science, nowadays English is so. Many times professors end up teaching Dutch courses in English simply because that’s the working language for their field of expertise. I am not saying Dutch language programs should be eliminated, far from it. Nonetheless, *some* of the justifications for not accepting English programs/courses are shortsighted.
For once I agree with Weyts. It’s true that you will need English later, wathever you study. But just because the courses are in Dutch doesn’t mean that English isn’t used there.
I study a course in Dutch, yet most of my textbooks are in English. When I have to write a paper, most of the sources used are in English. I even have a couple of classes that are taught by a Chinese professor in English. The only difference it really makes wether a course is officialy in English or Dutch, is the language of the classes being in Dutch, or broken English spoken by a native Dutch-speaker. And I think almost everyone who has had classes from Flemish professors in broken English will agree that they’d rather had that class in Dutch instead.
If all classes in English were taught by native English-speakers instead, it’s a different story. But that’s never going to happen.
We Got 3 languages to choose from. Thats plenty. Deal with it.
[Ondertussen heeft professor geschiedenis Bruno De Wever, expert in de Vlaamse Beweging en werkzaam aan de eerste Nederlandstalige universiteit van ons land (Universiteit Gent) zich op Radio 1 al sterk uitgesproken tegen de drang van de Vlaamse rectoren naar meer verengelsing.](https://radio1.be/luister/select/de-wereld-vandaag/is-het-een-goed-idee-om-sommige-universitaire-opleidingen-enkel-nog-in-het-engels-aan-te-bieden) Als er een iemand is die beseft hoe de drang om een culturele en financiële elite in een andere taal te onderwijzen dan het gewone volk een maatschappij serieus kan ontwrichten, dan is hij het wel.
Ik vind het dan ook frappant dat er hier mensen zijn die zich graag “progressief” noemen en dan staan te klappen voor dit bijzonder reactionaire voorstel van de rectoren. Er is daar helemaal niks progressiefs aan. Ik zie dan argumenten passeren als “met Nederlands ben je toch niks op de arbeidsmarkt”, “Engels opent meer deuren”, “Engels is de taal van de wetenschap”, “met mijn collega’s praten toch enkel Engels”. Vervang “Nederlands” door “Vlaams” en “Engels” door “Frans” en je zit meteen in het discours dat de franskiljonse elite in ons land zo’n honderd jaar geleden hier voerde.
In Nederland zijn ze daar al veel verder in doorgeslagen en is de onderwijskwaliteit daar dan veel beter? De Wever stelt dat er al onderzoeken zijn uitgevoerd die aantonen dat onderwijs in het Engels de kloof tussen hoog- en laagopgeleiden vergroot en dat het de drempel voor sociaal zwakkeren in de samenleving verhoogt. Hiep, hiep, hoera, wat een progressief beleid!
Uiteindelijk draait het vooral om geld en prestige. Meer Engels in de aula’s stelt de universiteit in staat om winstgevende buitenlandse studenten aan te trekken en ook meer “prestigieuze” professoren aan te trekken, want stel u voor dat we in ons land hoogopgeleiden aan dezelfde criteria inzake taalkennis onderwerpen als laagopgeleiden, van wie we verwachten dat ze zo snel mogelijk het Nederlands onder de knie krijgen.
Het huidige decreet laat trouwens toe om 1) Engelstalige masteropleidingen te organiseren, zolang er ergens aan een Vlaamse universiteit een Nederlandstalig equivalent bestaat en 2) in Nederlandstalige masteropleidingen kan al 1 op 2 vakken in een andere taal onderwezen worden (taalvakken niet meegerekend). Maar nee, laat ons vooral nog meer verengelsen zodat “hoogopgeleiden” van zichzelf kunnen denken dat ze boven het lageropgeleide plebs staan en wereldburgers zijn, in tegenstelling tot dat enge nationalistische volkje.
Nice isolating themself in a global economy, smart approach ^^
I remember from my law studies at KU Leuven that the easy courses were the English ones, as they needed to keep the level low enough for international students.
Good. There’s plenty of English to go around. We are not an English country. We speak Dutch/Vlaams, French and maybe German.
The language used by the professor should be Dutch. Of course key words or even courses are going to be English because of the nature of e.g. stem, but the lectures should be in Dutch as much as possible.
It seems like a pretty straightforward and fair principle that every person in Flanders can access higher education without needing to be fluent in a foreign language, no matter how prevalent that language might be on a global scale.
Working in IT for a (true) Flemish company in a global setting. Our standard language at work is English.
Frankly, people in this thread demanding that professors speak fluent English and laughing with their broken English, clearly have never worked in an international context.
People don’t speak perfect English. They have funny accents. They mispronounce words. Sometimes they won’t immediately come up with a certain word and start fishing for it. They will literally translate certain phrases and end up with something which touches side nor wall. (See what I did there)
If you can only bear perfect English, go watch the BBC. In the real world though, get your head out of your arse and try to communicate rather than upholding people to your ridiculous language demands.
Now, after this rant, I think Dutch at Flemish universities is a good thing, and I think English at universities is also a good thing.
I would expect students at university level to know the languages they need for their studies though, before they start their first year.
20 comments
> Ik ben niet het soort flamingant die met een Frans brood onder zijn arm zal sterven van de honger,…
Hah this is a new one for me
> onder meer omdat de masteropleiding burgerlijk ingenieur anders nergens in Vlaanderen nog in het Nederlands zou worden aangeboden. Het academisch aanbod moet “toegankelijk en democratisch blijven”, zegt minister van Onderwijs Ben Weyts (N-VA).
It’s scary that this muppet thinks you can be a competent engineer these days – or pretty much anything else for that matter – without a proper grasp of your domain in English.
> Weyts. “Ik ben niet het soort flamingant die met een Frans brood onder zijn arm zal sterven van de honger, maar onze Vlaamse jongeren hebben wel recht op een opleiding in hun eigen taal.”
Does he really think missing out on the state-of-the-art while waiting for silly translations, is doing our students a favor?
Of course not, this is still about that stupid Leuven vlaams, from more than half a century ago
> Het heeft heel lang geduurd voor het Nederlands aanvaard werd als een volwaardige onderwijstaal, een wetenschappelijke taal, een academische taal. Dat mogen we nu niet zomaar verkwanselen.
February is gone. Tournée Minerale has passed. It’s obvious Ben Weyts has been drinking again. What a <censored>.
I’m an American with several friends teaching at universities in the Netherlands. It’s a whole different world there. (My humanities friends are all very conversational in dutch with C1 or above, but they’re no longer obliged to teach long term in Dutch. My scientist friends are all happy with B1 certificates and their whole degree program is already all English.)
De N-VA komt met de ene bad take achter de andere tegenwoordig. Dutch is holding us back!
Weyts projecting his insecurities so hard that we’re reaching USA levels of politics lmao
As a “burgerlijk ingenieur” student at the KUL, I’m not in favor of giving all masters in English. The problem is that the English courses are often given by the same professors that give the Dutch courses. And surprisingly, their English is often not good enough to be teaching in English. Combining this with the poor English skill of students is a bad idea.
I don’t understand why everybody always wants to speak English
Anyone claiming that we need English masters in order to prevent our level plummeting has clearly never had to attend lectures given by professors who clearly are more at ease in their mother tongue. (which makes sense) In general at uni my Dutch spoken courses were of a higher level. I took two classes of the same professor who is/was also a professor at Stanford. And even he openly admitted that his courses in Dutch were of a higher level.
Even in “Dutch” masters the textbooks are often in English and you are expected to read English papers. The difference is in the language the professor speaks and the language in which you need to write your exams and papers.
The reason universities are pursuing English masters is the fact that international students pay way better and it’s a way for them to make ends meet.
So I have no problem with Weyts not accepting dissolving the Dutch masters but he should also acknowledge that their are often (financial) reasons for our universities to opt to organize only English speaking masters and if he wants to fix that he and the Flemish government should take a look at their university funding.
I genuinely wonder if this would cause problems with the usual academia way of working. There’s a lot of invited scholars and important academics that don’t speak dutch and end up in flemish universities… wouldn’t this idea make bringing this people more complicated?
Why are people angry that they want to Dutch classes, in a Dutch university, in a Dutch speaking region?
No offense, but I am not sure Dutch has been accepted as a scientific language anywhere. In higher education, professors are trained researchers, and just like centuries ago Latin was the language of science, nowadays English is so. Many times professors end up teaching Dutch courses in English simply because that’s the working language for their field of expertise. I am not saying Dutch language programs should be eliminated, far from it. Nonetheless, *some* of the justifications for not accepting English programs/courses are shortsighted.
For once I agree with Weyts. It’s true that you will need English later, wathever you study. But just because the courses are in Dutch doesn’t mean that English isn’t used there.
I study a course in Dutch, yet most of my textbooks are in English. When I have to write a paper, most of the sources used are in English. I even have a couple of classes that are taught by a Chinese professor in English. The only difference it really makes wether a course is officialy in English or Dutch, is the language of the classes being in Dutch, or broken English spoken by a native Dutch-speaker. And I think almost everyone who has had classes from Flemish professors in broken English will agree that they’d rather had that class in Dutch instead.
If all classes in English were taught by native English-speakers instead, it’s a different story. But that’s never going to happen.
We Got 3 languages to choose from. Thats plenty. Deal with it.
[Ondertussen heeft professor geschiedenis Bruno De Wever, expert in de Vlaamse Beweging en werkzaam aan de eerste Nederlandstalige universiteit van ons land (Universiteit Gent) zich op Radio 1 al sterk uitgesproken tegen de drang van de Vlaamse rectoren naar meer verengelsing.](https://radio1.be/luister/select/de-wereld-vandaag/is-het-een-goed-idee-om-sommige-universitaire-opleidingen-enkel-nog-in-het-engels-aan-te-bieden) Als er een iemand is die beseft hoe de drang om een culturele en financiële elite in een andere taal te onderwijzen dan het gewone volk een maatschappij serieus kan ontwrichten, dan is hij het wel.
Ik vind het dan ook frappant dat er hier mensen zijn die zich graag “progressief” noemen en dan staan te klappen voor dit bijzonder reactionaire voorstel van de rectoren. Er is daar helemaal niks progressiefs aan. Ik zie dan argumenten passeren als “met Nederlands ben je toch niks op de arbeidsmarkt”, “Engels opent meer deuren”, “Engels is de taal van de wetenschap”, “met mijn collega’s praten toch enkel Engels”. Vervang “Nederlands” door “Vlaams” en “Engels” door “Frans” en je zit meteen in het discours dat de franskiljonse elite in ons land zo’n honderd jaar geleden hier voerde.
In Nederland zijn ze daar al veel verder in doorgeslagen en is de onderwijskwaliteit daar dan veel beter? De Wever stelt dat er al onderzoeken zijn uitgevoerd die aantonen dat onderwijs in het Engels de kloof tussen hoog- en laagopgeleiden vergroot en dat het de drempel voor sociaal zwakkeren in de samenleving verhoogt. Hiep, hiep, hoera, wat een progressief beleid!
Uiteindelijk draait het vooral om geld en prestige. Meer Engels in de aula’s stelt de universiteit in staat om winstgevende buitenlandse studenten aan te trekken en ook meer “prestigieuze” professoren aan te trekken, want stel u voor dat we in ons land hoogopgeleiden aan dezelfde criteria inzake taalkennis onderwerpen als laagopgeleiden, van wie we verwachten dat ze zo snel mogelijk het Nederlands onder de knie krijgen.
Het huidige decreet laat trouwens toe om 1) Engelstalige masteropleidingen te organiseren, zolang er ergens aan een Vlaamse universiteit een Nederlandstalig equivalent bestaat en 2) in Nederlandstalige masteropleidingen kan al 1 op 2 vakken in een andere taal onderwezen worden (taalvakken niet meegerekend). Maar nee, laat ons vooral nog meer verengelsen zodat “hoogopgeleiden” van zichzelf kunnen denken dat ze boven het lageropgeleide plebs staan en wereldburgers zijn, in tegenstelling tot dat enge nationalistische volkje.
Nice isolating themself in a global economy, smart approach ^^
I remember from my law studies at KU Leuven that the easy courses were the English ones, as they needed to keep the level low enough for international students.
Good. There’s plenty of English to go around. We are not an English country. We speak Dutch/Vlaams, French and maybe German.
The language used by the professor should be Dutch. Of course key words or even courses are going to be English because of the nature of e.g. stem, but the lectures should be in Dutch as much as possible.
It seems like a pretty straightforward and fair principle that every person in Flanders can access higher education without needing to be fluent in a foreign language, no matter how prevalent that language might be on a global scale.
Working in IT for a (true) Flemish company in a global setting. Our standard language at work is English.
Frankly, people in this thread demanding that professors speak fluent English and laughing with their broken English, clearly have never worked in an international context.
People don’t speak perfect English. They have funny accents. They mispronounce words. Sometimes they won’t immediately come up with a certain word and start fishing for it. They will literally translate certain phrases and end up with something which touches side nor wall. (See what I did there)
If you can only bear perfect English, go watch the BBC. In the real world though, get your head out of your arse and try to communicate rather than upholding people to your ridiculous language demands.
Now, after this rant, I think Dutch at Flemish universities is a good thing, and I think English at universities is also a good thing.
I would expect students at university level to know the languages they need for their studies though, before they start their first year.