On Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:53:19 -0400, Frances Kemmish
<fkemmish@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>> Frances Kemmish <fkemmish@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>>=20
>
>>>
>>>As it happens, on Wednesday evening I was at a reception in New York
>>>for alumni of the University of Birmingham. One of the guests of
>>>honour was Paul Nurse, who was a student at the same time that I was
>>>(although I never met him then). He mentioned the matriculation
>>>requirements of the time, which included a pass at O-Level in a
>>>foreign language. He failed the exam six times, but the head of the
>>>department to which he'd applied went to the University Senate, and
>>>got a special dispensation for him to matriculate without that
>>>requirement, so long as he took language cl***** in the French
>>>department during his first year as an undergraduate.
>>>
>>>Since there was no "graduation" from secondary schools in the UK,
>>>matriculation would be the nearest equivalent of a "high school
>>>graduation requirement".
>>=20
>>=20
>> It may be the nearest thing, but (at least) until relatively recently
>> a high school diploma was as far as the bulk of Americans got (or even
>> attempted), so it's not really all that close.
>>=20
>
>Back when I was getting ready to go to university, the majority of=20
>English children left school before they were sixteen, with no paper=20
>qualifications whatsoever. There was no comparison between US high=20
>school graduation, and the English school leaving process at that time.
>
>When my daughter graduated from high school in California in 2003, the=20
>graduation requirements were the entrance requirements set by the=20
>University of California.
>
I left school at fifteen (1955) with no paper qualifications.
Secondary modern education didn't bring you up to ONC* standard, let
alone GCE O'level. The CSE, forerunner of the GCSE, was introduced a
year or two later. When I went to university (1961) there were only
three universities in the country (London, Leicester and Hull) that
didn't demand at least one foreign language at O'level, and London
allowed you in but you couldn't graduate unless you had two foreign
languages. They changed that rule in 1962, thank goodness.
ONC: Ordinary National Certificate, a set of technical exams that were
at a slightly lower level than O'level.
--=20
Robin=20
Herts, England=20
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