23 May 2018

Latin and Sculpture Scholarship exams in doubt

11:33 am on 23 May 2018

Teachers of Latin and Sculpture are trying to convince the Qualifications Authority to continue offering scholarship exams in their subjects.

A Latin class at Wellington College.

A Latin class at Wellington College. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen

The authority's biennial review of Scholarship says the subjects could be dropped because of a lack of students.

It has also suggested that a new subject, Religious Studies, be included for the first time.

The authority said 23 students sat Scholarship Latin last year and 20 the year before that, while Sculpture had 27 candidates last year and 28 in 2016.

The authority said every scholarship subject needed to have a significant number of students performing with excellence at level 3, an appropriate tertiary path for scholarship students, and sufficient candidates to make the most efficient and effective use of resources.

"One of the major reasons NZQA is consulting on removing Latin and Sculpture from Scholarship is because falling numbers of students have made it increasingly difficult to find a sufficient pool of independent and qualified assessors," it said.

But Wellington College Year 12 student George Lethbridge said removing the option of scholarship would discourage students from taking the subject at all.

"If they get rid of this it just sends all the wrong signals. Instead of encouraging a really valuable subject, it starts to make people think, 'oh maybe I shouldn't do this, this isn't valuable to me," he said. "I've just found it a really stimulating subject."

Year 13 student Connor Smith said it would be a shame if Latin was removed from the list of scholarship exams.

"Scholarship is always just a big step up and learning it at that higher level, it's a bit more challenging and because of that you really get a deeper appreciation for the language."

Fellow Year 13 student Dan Chapman agreed, saying he used it a lot.

"Latin is still quite prevalent in today's society. You've got school mottos, you've got Latin phrases - occasionally I'll see one and go 'I know what that means'."

The Association of Classics Teachers' Latin spokesperson Rob Griffiths said removing the option of scholarship would hurt enrolments in the subject at lower levels.

"The Latin students are an academic group of students who thrive on the challenge, on the intellectual stimulation of those exams and so it would lose a lot of its appeal to the students because they don't see that final, ultimate pinnacle achievement being possible anymore," he said.

Mr Griffiths said the low number of students enrolling in the Scholarship Latin exam should not result in the exam being dropped, and there were plenty of people who could write and assess the exam independently.

Wellington College students: Connor Smith (L), Dan Chapman and George Lethbridge.

Wellington College students: Connor Smith (L), Dan Chapman and George Lethbridge. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen

Wellington College Latin teacher Kim Tatersall was also surprised Latin might be dropped.

"I do see it as ironic. Latin has long been a test of academic ability and there are very good reasons for this. It gives us access to our past, to the backbone of our literature, our history, our philosophy," he said.

Meanwhile, Sam Eng from the Association of Art Educators said Scholarship Sculpture was based on an assessment of students' NCEA level 3 folios and their workbooks for the year.

He said sculpture demanded the critical thinking and intellectual rigour required of scholarship subjects, but numbers had been dropping in recent years.

Mr Eng said fewer students would study Sculpture at any level if a scholarship award was no longer offered.

"If we're sort of relegated, then we've got a real problem on our hands," he said.

"Print-making's been suggested to the art teaching sector as at risk as well and so it's the start of a slippery slope really where the visual arts are marginalised further than they have been for the past decade and we end up where we have a culture-less creative hole in our education system."

The Qualifications Authority is considering adding one new subject to the scholarship list, Religious Studies.

Colin MacLeod from the Religious Studies Teachers Association said about 17,000 students took the subject each year, including 5000 at senior level.

He did not know how many would go for scholarship exams in the subject, but it was only fair that they had the option.

"Kids that excel at it, they bring a particular skill set to it whether its textual analysis, or looking at ethics or looking at historical aspects, the door slams on them once they get to the end of level three," he said.

The lack of a scholarship exam in Religious Studies was a remnant of the scepticism that accompanied the subject's inclusion in the NCEA, he said. People had wrongly assumed the subject was about indoctrination, rather than about critical studies.

Consultation on the proposed changes would close on 22 June.

Scholarship exams are run at the end of each year at the same time as NCEA exams. Successful candidates receive $500, but those who get three or more Scholarship passes receive $2000 a year for three years of tertiary study and other payments are made to students with particularly high marks.

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