Tussen de 10 en 20 procent van de professoren en docenten die aan universiteiten en hogescholen lesgeven in het Engels haalt niet het vereiste taalniveau, blijkt uit een taaltest.
De gebuisde professoren leggen zich echter niet zomaar neer bij de uitslag van die test. In een open brief aan minister van onderwijs Pascal Smet (sp.a) eisen ze respect en vragen ze de garantie dat ze kunnen blijven lesgeven. De redactie publiceert de integrale brief, opgesteld in het Engels om hun punt kracht bij te zetten, hieronder:
Esteemed Minister,
After we were placed in knowledge of your possible decision to forbid us to teach in English next semester, we immediately crawled in our pens to write you.
We are completely not agreement with this test for two reasons.
For first, we think it is a cheek slap that we had to prove our knowledge of English as high esteemed professors with ridge careers. We want to set pole and perk to the interferences of the Flemish administration: we have it very busy and must already fill in enough papers.
For second, it is our opinion that the test itself completely misses the ball. We are able to speak good in English about our own disciplinary field, but this test did not ask questions in English about our own disciplinary field, but questions in English about other fields. But, this is not honest and not in the total relevant!!!
We are able to speak good in English about our own disciplinary field
We therefore ice two things from you:
* A guaranty that we can give lessons in 2014;
* An apology for the humiliation in front of our students, who now laugh us out in our face.
With respect,
The tubed professors