Optional English not a recent decision

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 7

Optional English not a recent decision

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON. The decision to make English an option subject for School Certificate was not made this year, as is widely believed, but in 1970, when the whole format of the examination was changed.

A recent regulation designated English as the only subject which School Certificate-level pupils had to take during the year, and this has given the impresIsion that it is no longer a compulsory subject for those I sitting the examination. In | fact, it has not been comIpulsory to sit English, as distinct from take it, since 1970. The Minister of Education (Mr Gandar) announced in January tnat the regulations governing School Certificate I had “been amended to give schools greater flexibility”, and “now English would be the only compulsory course of study for School I Certificate candidates still at school.”

The only requirement for a school candidate sitting School Certificate was that a course in English be studied during the year, at any level, the candidate not being obliged to sit English in the examination.

Previously, candidates, to be eligible to sit the examination, had to take courses in Englisn, Mathematics or a science, and History, Geography or social studies or the alternative courses in those subjects, the Minister said.

All the new regulation has done is remove mathematics or science and history, geography or social science from the list of subjects which must be taken by the candidate who does not intend to sit them.

Theoretically, English may be taken at any level of the school system by the School

Certificate candidate, but, according to the Education

Department, it is most unusual for anyone to take it at a lower level than the fifth form. School principals are required by regulation to sign a statement that a pupil not intending to sit English “has shown a satisfactory attitude to work in the course and has fulfilled reasonable homework requirements.”

Neither the regulations nor the Education Department provide any more criteria on which the pupil will be assessed, not even to say that the pupil’s work “has reached a satisfactory level.” The Education Department believes that “only a handful of pupils” sitting school

certificate do not sit English, and says that in most schools examination pupils are encouraged to sit it. No figures exist on the exact number of school candidates who do not sit English, but it is thought that fewer than 5 per cent of those sitting do not sit English.

There are probably a number of reasons why nearly all those for whom English is the native language would sit it, but the main ones are that it is a compulsory subject for those who intend to sit University Entrance, and that it is a subject in which most parents and pupils achieve some proficiency.