Auckland Grammar prides itself on turning out future leaders. How depressing, then, that headmaster John Morris feels the need to reach back in time and space to England for an appropriate template.
Is that ancient and exclusive seat of privilege Cambridge University really the place to find the mould for the 21st century Kiwi pathfinder?
Will sitting exams based on a heavily anglocentric syllabus help our future leaders stand tall and confident in this small corner of the South Pacific?
Fifty years ago, my parents' generation still referred to England as home, even though most of them had never set foot in the centre of the empire.
As recently as 1970, when I first wandered the streets of central London, my first impression was of the familiarity of it all.
My education - and that included university-level history and politics - had ensured that I knew the landmarks and culture and history of the old imperial capital better than those of my own country.
Thankfully, since then there has been a revolution in the way we view ourselves and the world.
Historians will look back at the second half of the 20th century in New Zealand as the age of self-discovery. A time when we accepted we had a history and a culture of our own that was worth studying and celebrating.
It was through this process that Pakeha New Zealanders, for example, finally came to confront the significance and role of the Treaty of Waitangi in our national life and of the need to deal with the past before we could move on as a country.
In this context, John Morris' decision to use Cambridge University A level exams to test his senior students is a dreadful lurch backward to the inferiority-complex days of our colonial past.
Mr Morris' justification for introducing the "international examination" is that the proposed new New Zealand Certificate in Educational Achievement eradicates challenge, demotivates effort, is mediocre and encourages plagiarism.
A damning indictment indeed for something not yet up and running -particularly so when Mr Morris is a member of the Qualifications Authority and of the Ministry of Education's secondary school forum, which was set up as a sounding board to monitor the progress of the new standard.
The headmaster says students will sit both the local certificate and the Cambridge exam, but he makes it clear which he prefers.
The Cambridge test "gives direct entry into universities around the world. In this day and age, where education is more global, students need portable and credible qualifications. This is the way to go."
It might be, if collecting portable qualifications is the main aim of education.
Poet Allen Curnow wrote memorably half a century ago, after gazing at the bones of an extinct moa: "Not I, some child, born in a marvellous year, Will learn the trick of standing upright here."
The Cambridge syllabuses that Auckland Grammar plans to use will not be helping any of its students to stand upright. Not a New Zealand book, poem, or historical event features.
In the literature section, British writers predominate. Shakespeare, Bronte, Austen, Jonson, Blake, Plath. There's a smattering from the old colonies including Fugard, Arthur Miller and Margaret Atwood but no one from the Pacific.
The history syllabus is similarly bereft of local flavour. The choice is between the modern histories of tropical Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe or Southeast Asia, along with a paper on international history 1945-91.
Mr Morris says the Cambridge qualification "gives direct entry into universities around the world," but this will not be true for New Zealanders who gain their A levels locally.
Under existing regulations, if these students do not also have the approved New Zealand qualifications, they will have restricted entry only.
Auckland Grammar's solution to this problem seems to be to get their students to sit two sets of exams, following two different syllabuses.
It seems an extraordinary imposition to place on students just to satisfy a principal's disgruntlement with the new qualifications system. New Zealand needs young leaders who are proud, confident and knowledgeable about who they are and where they come from.
The ivory towers of England are the last place we should be looking for such an education.
<i>Rudman's city: </i>English exam has no business here
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