Joe, to get back to your original comments, I totally disagree with indigenous based courses. I have seen some absolute disasters emerging from places like Bachelor College in the NT, a totally indigenous educational facility that trained Health Workers and “ teachers”. Some of these teachers graduated without even being able to speak English, a fact that left Mal Brough speechless when he visited schools in Arnhem Land.
Far better to have bridging courses for all students who arent at the required level to commence a degree or diploma course. Many kids, black and white, fail to complete secondary school, for many reasons, but as adults have matured and wished to further their education.
I am also totally against all forms of separation for any culture at university’s and TAFE, whether they be indigenous, Muslim, Asian, Martian, whatever.
Education is supposed to provide enlightenment, not breed apartheid.

//I might remind you that in the big wide world of words, some words, even though have the same spelling, actually have different meanings.//

And obviously, some do not. Boronic only has one meaning in English; 'Of or pertaining to the boronic acids or their derivatives'.

Inventing entirely new and unrelated meanings that don't appear in any dictionary is not an effective way to communicate. I suggest you try and stick to speaking English; you're a poor enough communicator as it is without the use of meaningless gobbledegook.

ttbn, yeah, I know, but I'm my own victim.
I cannot stand untruths or anything that has a selfish and high and mighty or arrogant agenda.
The unfortunate part is that I can understand women trying to look at life with a warm and fuzzy feeling, because they are warm and fuzzy things and are loving and nurturing and motherly, but at some point they must be told that the world is not like that and told the truth.
What I do not understand is when guys openly carry on like girls, all compliant and sweet and nicey, nicey, OMG it is not the MO of a MAN.
Yeah they can crap on about me being insecure and afraid of my blah, blah, blah, not listening.
I am more offended when something seemingly male carries on like a female, now that's offensive, not only to me, but to all women in general.
Anyway ttbn, keep up the good word and keep your powder dry and your bayonet sharp, it's war out there and we have been called upon to protect and promote THE TRUTH!

Toni, you mean talk like you or your clown mates who make up words like ALTRAVE, thereby, 'inventing entirely new and unrelated meanings that don't appear in any dictionary is not an effective way to communicate'.
Is that what you mean?
And yet it appears you are much better versed at speaking gobbledegook
than I will ever be.
I write and speak, amongst other languages, english, better than most.
As you are the resident expert on gobbledegook, I'll leave that entirely with you as it is well within your purview.

//Toni, you mean talk like you or your clown mates who make up words like ALTRAVE//

Sorry, where does it say 'ALTRAVE' in either of my previous posts discussing boronic acid? The closest I can see is this bit from my first post:

//That would be covered in chemistry, ALTRAV.//

Notice the lack of 'E' in 'ALTRAV'?

I believe you are confusing me with somebody else, which would suggest problems with your reading as well as writing.

//I write and speak, amongst other languages, english, better than most.//

Nope.

Hi Big Nana,

Yes, I agree about mainstream study, and intensive preparation courses to assist people to get into them. Thirty-odd years ago, I was working at a university campus (Salisbury) where they ran a mainstream courses in conservation management. We took a group of Indigenous students through a semester-length preparation course with a lot of Biology, but it was far too little; and the students seemed to have normal idea of what conservation management was - I think some thought it meant shooting buffalo etc.

So we knocked up an intensive year-long Bridging Course to help students cope with the mainstream course better, with a social emphasis on Biology. That worked, and each year - three years later - we had graduates from the mainstream course, and probably did so every year up to 2000 and beyond.

But being an 'Indigenous course', there as pressure on us to hive it off as an 'Indigenous Conservation Management course', just the one year. We refused - it was nothing more than a preparation course, and certainly not some Indigenous alternative to the mainstream course.

That was then, when few Indigenous people, and certainly few men, and even fewer who wanted to be qualified conservation managers and rangers, had studied Biology and other sciences (and maths) at high school. It's a bit different now, and such courses wouldn't be necessary, at least down this way.

Batchelor seemed to have a shocking record, of huge numbers of students and very few graduates. A MARRIED couple of Ass. Dip. graduates from Batchelor came down to try out our week of pre-selection tests one year (I think 1992); they did one day of tests, clocked up $ 1200 in phone bills at the motel that we booked them into, pissed off without paying their bill, left dirty nappies all over the floor, etc. The motel people cut us off for good. Their English was pretty poor and numeracy non-existent. That was the end of that grand experiment.

[TBC]