I often remark to my colleagues how incredible my timing was, that I decided to teach Latin- a language taught and used to various degrees for nearly 3,000 years - at the exact same moment my country decided to get rid of it. O Tempora! O Mores!
I’ve been asked a few times by people outside of our quaint little country to explain just what happened and why - I can definitely tell you the first, while I can hopefully point towards some reasons for the second.
The Basics
The long and the short of is that Latin has essentially been removed from New Zealand’s national curriculum, meaning that after it is phased out in the next year, there will be no more national examinations, scholarships or Ministry support for the subject. Whilst school are still free to teach it, very few will do so as it does not allow for students to gain credits towards their final National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
The following sections give a little bit of context - feel free to skip to the ‘What Happened in 2020’ bit if you just want the low down.
A Little History on Education in New Zealand
In the early 2000s, New Zealand underwent quite a radical shift in its education system - at least in terms of assessment. The NCEA was introduced, replacing the previous School Certificate system (a traditional, end of year exam style system much like GCSE) with a very different paradigm: NCEA would introduce internal assessment for half of the course, and focus on performance against standards rather than numbers - you can pass with Achieved, Merit or Excellence. The other radical shift saw a more generic system of assessments allowing far more student choice, but also taking much of the content out of the actual curriculum.
This is important especially for the context that, at the time, a number of more ‘traditional’ schools balked at this notion and looked further afield for ‘alternative’ systems for assessment - picking up the Cambridge International Exams (CIE) or the International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes instead. This resulted in something of a schism between independent and public schools, something which has never quite been mended. This also has had a profound affect upon Latin in New Zealand.
Latin in New Zealand
New Zealand, for those of you who may not know, was once only home to the indigenous Māori people, before being colonised by the British formally in 1840. Since then, it has adopted a series of British systems of law, government and, amongst many others, education. With this came the teaching of Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek, as schools were modelled on those back in the homeland. Over time these two nations have grown apart, but much of that initial imprint remains set in stone.
What they did not bring, of course, was a respect for the teaching of indigenous languages - Māori children were for a long time beaten for speaking their Reo and, deliberately or otherwise, it was nearly eradicated. Fortunately a renaissance has seen Te Reo Māori flourish and become a normalised part of our culture - though there is much work still to do.
For a long time, Latin was therefore taught in the old-fashioned style - chanting, rote learning, etc - a somewhat arduous experience for those less interested. Over time, the significance of the language dissipated somewhat as our connection to Europe and Britain became less important. By the generation of the 1980s, the popularity of the subject began to wane significantly as more schools stopped offering it and the dreaded question of “what job can I do with this” reared its ugly head.
As a result, Latin became the domain of the elite, whether intentionally or not. Soon the only schools that offered it would be the Independent (fee-paying) Colleges and the ‘traditional’ Grammar Schools, that had something of an obligation to continue it. This, of course, became a cycle, as the perception of Latin as a subject reserved for the social elite was perpetuated by it only being offered to them. Soon, the subject became optional or reserved for the brightest students, even furthering the sense of elitism.
When NCEA was introduced, many of those schools offering Latin looked to other pathways, and as a result, Latin numbers dropped sharply on the Government books. It didn’t particularly matter that people were still learning it under other systems - it seemed as though its days were numbered. The continued shift in social attitudes only hastened the sense of irrelevance given to a language that has yet so much to offer.
What Happened in 2020
Covid-19 of course! No? Oh something else… Well in late February 2020, as part of a broad review of the NCEA, our Ministry of Education put out a series of ‘proposals’ for changes to the system. This included collapsing 3 separate sciences into one subject at Level 1 (there are 3 levels of NCEA), removing Classics at Level 1 in favour of just ‘History’ (more on that later) and, most shockingly, cutting Latin at all levels forever!
Now I say ‘proposals’ because these were put out the public to make submissions. And boy did we make submissions. Now, the Science teacher community was active too, but to say that many of the submissions were about Latin would be an understatement - over 2000 of the roughly 4000 submissions received were in regards to keeping Latin. These came from all over the world - academics, politicians, celebrities - you name it, they wrote in. We were incredibly lucky to be represented by Rob Griffiths, the President of the New Zealand Association of Classical Teachers, who put his absolute all into the campaign to save Latin in New Zealand.
And it was all for nothing - with barely any acknowledgement of the outpouring of facts, opinions, personal stories and more, the Government confirmed in December that the changes would go ahead. Keep in mind too, all of this happened during the series of lockdowns that we went through in 2020, which saw almost no communication from the Ministry at any point. It’s also worth noting that the Government did back down on its Science proposal, so clearly some discretion was available.
In the time since, most schools that did offer Latin have stopped. A few are still going with their alternative pathways, but do so knowing that they will lose many of their potential students who are unable to do it through NCEA. A number of pieces have been written in the press about this and I certainly suggest you read these too:
NZ Herald - Initial Announcement
RNZ - Confirmation of Changes
The Detail - Emile Donovan
Newsroom - Josh King
NZ Herald - Emily Baragwanath
Why???
The stated reasons the Ministry will give you for removing Latin is simply that not enough students were taking it (for them to be bothered spending money on it). The second part, obviously, is unspoken but in our neoliberal education system, so much value is now placed on cost that it is clearly the deciding factor. Of course, the Ministry had done absolutely nothing to prevent the decline in numbers, instead just waiting and watching for the moment to drop the guillotine.
I’ve hinted at some of the reasons above as to why both numbers have decreased and also the reputation of the subject has suffered. I can summarise these below:
Elitism
Yes, the unfortunate situation inevitably arose where it became more of a hallmark of the ‘elite’ to study Latin. Keeping in mind that ‘elite’ in New Zealand is a pretty loose term… However, arguably the strongest proponent of Latin in New Zealand, Auckland Grammar School, is not a fee-paying one. Nevertheless, the commodification of schooling in New Zealand is so strong that the ‘zone’ for enrollments for that school now sees houses fetch multi-million dollars - simply for the chance to send children to a Grammar school.
Yet in British schools, huge work has been done recently to remove the elitist stigma attached to the language and open it up to people of all classes. Furthermore it is being taught in primary and secondary schools, and is seeing a grand renaissance. A little effort and attention can make a massive difference.
‘Career Pathways’
One of the most dreaded phrases in New Zealand education is, ‘what job can I get with that?’ For decades now, a growing focus for the selection of subjects at schools has been placed on a ‘pathway’ to a certain career - completely ignoring the fact that most students don’t know what career they want, or even if they do, they are probably going to change careers multiple times, or even if they don’t, the subjects they take at 15 years old are nowhere near as decisive as they think!
This neoliberal creep of the job market into education has had significant effects on generations of graduates who have been forced into subjects that they ‘had to take’ in case they wanted to be a doctor or an engineer etc. The flipside of this is a decline in the learning of humanities, languages and arts - the same problems that are now seeing so many departments at Universities on the chopping board too…
We are no longer preparing students with a broad range of skills and the ability to fight through the barrage of misinformation on the internet, which is threatening our societies and governments. If I had a dollar for the amount of times I’d told students they could take a subject because they enjoyed it and found it interesting, only to be met with a blank look or one of surprise - well I could probably retire.
Relevance
This one is a bit tough, especially in a country that continues to (rightly) focus on decolonisation. The original rationale for learning Latin seems far out of place, and many seek to pit it against the learning of Te Reo Māori, which is unfortunate. If you asked almost any Latin teacher, they would tell you that learning any second language should be the main priority - New Zealand is startlingly mono-linguistic in its outlook, more so than even Britain or America(!).
What makes it harder to stomach is that, for decades now, our politicians have decried the falling rates of literacy in our country - which you could probably graph against the decline in interest in Latin… Learning second languages can be incredibly important for the development of children, and there are few people who have learned Latin that would deny it gives you a much greater understanding of your own language. It all feels very symptomatic of a system and a public that base decisions on vibes alone.
A Note On Classics In NZ
It’s worthwhile noting that New Zealand introduced Classical Studies as a senior option in schools when Latin began its decline in the 1980s. It has been, for many years now, an incredibly popular and successful course aimed at exploring key topics from the ancient world (without a language requirement). Originally it was introduced only at Level 2 and 3 (or the previous equivalent) and then much more recently a Level 1 course was introduced, to allow for younger students to gain a longer time in the course.
However, this is no easy task - Classics has always competed with other Humanities subjects like History and Geography for an ever-shrinking pool of students. To add a new course in at this level is at the least challenging, and for many schools impossible. So it can be no surprise that the number of students taking Level 1 was lower - as was the number of schools offering it. And of course, this was all the Ministry needed to swing the axe once more, under the pretext that it was not ‘broad’ enough. The irony being that Classics combines history, literature, art, philosophy and religion into one course, which is apparently not broad enough! Though they promised that Classics could be taught as a context in History, that vanished without a trace when the new standards were released.
Final Thoughts
The Ministry, of course, has showed little regard for the lives this would affect - in particular those of us who joined the profession to share the joy of learning this language. To have that dream so cruelly and heartlessly ripped away, with no attempt to prevent it, is desperately sad. I am hopeful for the return of Latin some day, but it seems that a huge, generational refocus would be required to do so. Maybe you all can be part of that difference.
Thank you as always for reading- I appreciate your support. Please drop a comment below if you have any thoughts.
I studied Latin (I won't say learnt!) through my entire UK education right up to first year university. It's given me an understanding of my own language, French, German, spanish and Italian, art, religion, history and so much more.
Maybe not fully appreciated at the time I can now honestly say it's been of more use, and given me more enjoyment, than any of the other subjects I took.
As to it not being of practical use a highlight for me was entering an Italian bar in backstreets Florence, requesting a bottle of cold water in 'fluent' latin - and getting what I'd asked for!
Oof. It all makes more sense now. We had chatted on Twitter around 2020 I believe when you were in the middle of all this. I can see why you were telling me it wasn't the place for a classics job! It is so frustrating to see Latin and Classics devalued in places were it could be so helpful.