Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 2. 1967.

Language for BA is not essential

page 5

Language for BA is not essential

The Students Association's education committee is pressing for the abolition of the langauge requirement for the BA degree.

Although a foreign language was considered desirable, members of the committee felt other subjects were also valuable, especially English.

The recommendations will be put before executive at it's next meeting.

"Any representations from the Students Association would be considered carefully by the university authorities," Professor Brookes. Head of the Political Science Department, told Salient.

"Not much has happened to change our view greatly since the question was last brought up, although particular consideration would probably be given to a system by which a good pass in School Certificate or University Entrance satisfied the requirement," he said.

Although he sees the cultural and disciplinary value of the requirement, its value as a tool for study of the foreign works in a students speciality is, in his opinion, often exaggerated and an insufficient reason for its retention.

"The possibility of Victoria introducing an Asian language next year and the fact that the BCA caters for students in the social sciences who are unsulted to languages, would operate against any arguments for abolition of the compulsory language in the BA," he said.

Other staff members interviewed see some value in the system, although few are entirely happy with it. Several said students are justified in disliking the restricted choice of languages available.

Professor Norrish, head of the Department of Foreign Languages, said: "The whole problem involves your concept of a BA degree and what it stands for." He would not like to see a system whereby it was possible to graduate; having never come in contact with another language.