Newsgroups: soc.culture.french,alt.politics.ec,sci.lang,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.german
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!newsflash.concordia.ca!CC.UMontreal.CA!news.Umontreal.CA!hinsenk
From: hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (Hinsen Konrad)
Subject: Re: EU not Democratic?
In-Reply-To: mintaka@alnilam.toppoint.de's message of 25 Feb 1995 19:39:00 +0100
Message-ID: <HINSENK.95Feb27192218@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
Sender: news@cc.umontreal.ca (Administration de Cnews)
Organization: Universite de Montreal
References: <elnaD3oBsD.IE7@netcom.com> <3htih2$6m4@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
	<3i0plp$2md@fido.asd.sgi.com>
	<DUNCAN.95Feb17144737@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk>
	<3i62ua$m7f@fido.asd.sgi.com> <5gXUJLVWaJB@alnilam.toppoint.de>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 00:22:18 GMT
Lines: 65

In article <5gXUJLVWaJB@alnilam.toppoint.de> mintaka@alnilam.toppoint.de (Bernd P.F. Kassler) writes:

   As far as I understood Mr. Hinsen, he had a german education.

Indeed.

   And in Germany education, unlike in France, is *not* a *national*  
   responsibility but within the responsability of the federated *country*  
   (in my case Schleswig-Holstein). And these cultural matter/problems are  
   *not* affected by the EU at all. Strictly spoken there exisats no law in  

It is true that the EU has no legal power in that area. But "not affected"
is not necessarily true. If the EU made some reasonable suggestion regarding
topics in education of direct European relevance (such as language
education), I doubt that the responsible institutions would simply
ignore it.

   As I told here: you can choose between languages but most of the parents  
   want english as second language (first foreign language). But if you can  
   get a whole class of pupils together (25, say) then you can take french or  
   danish.

So far for theory. In reality, schools estimate the potential interest
for various languages and only if they consider it sufficiently
probable that enough parents will choose something other than English,
they offer a choice (between the languages they have teachers
for). Therefore in small schools the parents are typically never asked
at all.

   That is: in germany the *parents* directly decide what their children have  
   to learn! (if this is *not* democratic, then I do not know what democracy  
   is).

It's just as democratic as elections in a country where the government
decides about the candidates.

   Please Note: I am not a theoretician. My daughter is 16 now and I had a  

In what way would being a theoretician change what you wrote?

   Peut tre Mr H. a des problemes avec mon anglais car c'est plain d'erreurs  

Votre francais n'est pas meilleur...

   mais j'espre que *vouz* me comprenez ;) (May be Mr. H. has some problems  
   with my english because its full of mistakes; but I hope you understand  
   me).

Mostly I understood what you wrote (except the part about theoreticians),
but if you tried e.g. to apply for a job using that level of English,
you would probably fail. Fortunately (for you) you can still apply
for jobs within the EU and its institutions in all official languages.
But if your "English for everyone" attitude becomes reality one day,
your daughter might not have that option any more. She would have
to apply in English and be at a serious disadvantage compared
to her competitors from England. But I suppose you wouldn't mind.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
Departement de Chimie             | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953
Universite de Montreal            | Fax:  +1-514-343-7586
C.P. 6128, succ. A                | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/Nederlands/
Montreal (QC) H3C 3J7             | Francais (phase experimentale)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
