Talk:Åbo Akademi University
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[edit] Discrimination?
Upon further consideration, I'm not entirely happy leaving the discrimination issue in the article. 84.248.203.220 added the part about discrimination to the article in the first place (twice, no less), and worded it thus:
The university has a policy, that non-Swedish speaking applicants from Nordic countries have to pass a Swedish language test, this is said to check the ability of the students to succesfully study in a Swedish environment. However, applicants from other countries can choose between Swedish or English language tests. Thus this policy is occasionally discussed as language-based discrimination against native Finnish speaking students.
I tried rewording it a bit, but to be honest now I'm not entirely sure what he/she is trying to say. Is it discrimination:
- in the sense that the Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian and Danish) are mutually intelligible, whereas Finnish has no relation to Swedish other than geographical proximity, it is discrimination against the Finnophones because they would have more difficulty completing a Swedish test than other Nordic students? And then a number of issues not addressed pops up, such as:
- Quotas of foreign students, that is, are Danes and Finns competing for the same seats?
- Åbo Akademi University policy of having a certain percentage of accepted students being Finnophones
- Danes and Norwegians may not necessarily be able to write proper Swedish, even if they can understand it
- "Pakkoruotsi", that is compulsory Swedish in Finnish schools; how does the matriculation exam factor in?
- because Finnish language universities have no similar language test/requirement in Finnish?
- because of some other reason I'm not thinking of at the moment?
From the way it was originally worded, I got the impression he/she meant the first option, but I realize now I may have read more into it than what was actually written. It should be a bit more clear why exactly this policy is considered discrimination for it remain in the article.
Also, given that charges of discrimination are fairly serious, it would also be a good idea to provide some sources.
So, if 84.248.203.220 could kindly clarify and elaborate upon this addition to the article, it could perhaps then be re-added to the article. I'm removing it from the article altogether for the time being. NordicStorm 19:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
