By BRONWYN SELL
Seventh-formers John Dunn, Matthew Wheeler and Pradeep Gangeswaran are thinking of their futures - that is why they have dropped English as a subject.
They are not alone. The percentage of seventh-formers taking English - according to Ministry of Education figures - has fallen from 70 per cent in 1990 to 61 per cent this year, which is raising concerns about literacy.
The three Auckland Grammar School students have to get high marks to get into university - Matthew is thinking about medical school, John pharmacy and Pradeep optometry.
They say English was their weakest subject in sixth form last year, which made it a luxury they could not afford in Bursary.
"I like the subject," said Matthew. "But it's just too hard to get a high mark because of the way they mark it. There's no real right or wrong - it's up to the marker's opinion."
Pradeep said English would bring his average mark down, and it needed to be high - 77 per cent in each of five subjects - to even get an interview for the University of Auckland Medical School.
Added John: "A drop in one subject, and you've sort of had it."
They are confident they have good communication skills and could prove it in a medical school interview, but they doubt they would get short-listed if they bombed out in English.
Principal John Morris said Auckland Grammar encouraged students to take a balance of subjects, but the high demands of selective-entry university courses were increasingly driving their decisions.
He said English was still popular - 63 per cent of seventh-formers chose it, second only to maths with statistics, studied by 68 per cent.
"I think it's important that the boys write well, and are articulate and can spell, but hopefully by the seventh form they've mastered that."
The Auckland medical school has insisted for the past two years that applicants take a humanities subject in seventh form, which could be English, history, geography, art history, Maori or classical studies.
A university study had found low levels of literacy among first-year students.
Margaret Bendall, principal of Epsom Girls' Grammar, said there had been no decline in the popularity of English among her students.
She suspected the medical school's humanities requirement had solidified the position of English.
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