Call for exam boycott

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 2

Call for exam boycott

<N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Dec. 12. A complete boycott of the school certificate English examination has been called for, by the Hillary College (Otara) branch of the PoetPrimary Teachers* Association. The Call was made after the Auckland District Maori Council said the school certificate English paper this year Was "irrelevant to all but those students from a middle-class EuropeanAmerican cultural background.” The branch has asked the association’s national executive to “take immediate steps to, ensure that no candidates be entered for school certi-

ficate English from 1972 onwards.” Instead, the branch suggested, schools should be instructed to award certificates of competence in English. English. "MAORI FAILURES” The branch described this year’s English paper as “mischievous in that it seems certain to produce yet another crop of Maori and Polynesian ‘failures* through defects in the instrument of measurement, rather than defects in the students themselves.” Mr I. K. Mitchell, a teacher at Hillary College, said that school certificate English papers should deal more with contemporary New Zealand writing. "Our students are quite capable of passing English, providing the literature

questions are sufficiently relevant to twentieth century New Zealand life,” he said.

The general secretary of the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (Mr P. W. Boag) said from Wellington that he had not yet received the Hillary College recommendation. If it arrived in time, the

recommendation would be considered by the management committee of the executive at its meeting tomorrow and on Wednesday. “There is no doubt that the school certificate has increasingly been coming under fire lately,” Mr Boag said. . "If this recommendation is received in time, it would certainly be treated as a matter of importance.” Although fifth-form students are required to take an ■ English course, » English is not a compulsory school certificate subject.