The Death of Literature, Kiwi Style

A New Zealand school dumped Shakespeare and replaced him with magazines in a bid to get students through their external exams. The change, believed to have been at Aorere College in Papatoetoe about 10 years ago, did not last because the college’s English teachers rebelled against it. But an Auckland University researcher who has written about the incident in her doctoral thesis, Dr Claudia Rozas Gomez, believes it was part of a growing trend to use simpler texts in senior English classes to get students through the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Hamilton Boys’ High School associate principal and English teacher David Williams says there has been a “gradual slippage” towards simpler texts in English departments since NCEA was introduced between 2002 and 2004.

Some students can get through their high school years without having to read one novel. That’s a novel ideal! Read more about this alarming trend here.

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