HUNTER residents who sat the first Higher School Certificate in 1967 said pressure to perform well in what was then an “unknown entity” pales in comparison to what students endure today.
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Newcastle Boys High School (NBHS) alumni Greg Wilson, Max Simpson and Neil Allen were in the first cohort and said no-one knew what to expect from the exams, which spanned just under three weeks.
“You’d done the work and you’d just trust that you would remember the things you studied,” said former school captain Dr Simpson, who studied medicine and is now an ophthalmologist.
“The School Certificate was much more of a challenge… but setting those good habits in place meant I found the HSC to be easier.
“It was an unknown entity, but the teachers prepared us well.”
Mr Wilson said almost all of the teachers at NBHS – which operated to 1977 on the site of what is now Callaghan College Waratah Technology Campus – had university degrees, at a time when other schools were mostly filled with teachers college graduates.
About 18,000 students sat the first HSC exams in the year The Beatles released All You Need Is Love, including about 1400 in Newcastle.
Mr Wilson, who studied Latin and French, said there were no computers or calculators and the closest the students got to technology was using headphones to listen to tapes in their “language laboratory”.
This year, 77,163 students are studying at least one course, including 5801 in the Hunter. Mr Wilson said some parents in 1967 did not realise what their children were facing. “Parents today have a higher education level and are more aware than ours were,” he said. “Today’s know exactly what you need to do to get into certain courses at uni. Ours said ‘just go and do it’, but didn’t really know where it would lead to.”
He said the exam period was a “blur”. “It was go-go-go, we just sat there and hoped for the best,” he said.
“There was not the pressure that there is today, because employment was not like it is today. There were also more traineeships.
“Kids were worried, but not as worried as they are today about having high enough marks – that was not really a focal point.”
Mr Allen, an accountant, said some of their peers did not study and still managed to “breeze through”.
”But I certainly had to work and study to get to where I wanted,” he said. “However it was still not as much pressure as my granddaughter is under now.”
Mr Allen said in hindsight, it was a privilege to sit the HSC. Some families couldn’t afford for their children to study instead of work. “My sister is a very bright lady but my parents never thought about her getting a HSC – it was more a male dominated thing,” he said. “I knew I was lucky and that was a great incentive to do well at school.”
Newcastle Boys’ High School Old Boys’ Association will hold its annual dinner and events for the class of 1967 on the first weekend in August next year. Email gawilson@bigpond.com.au
