Jennifer Allen receiving the Translation Prize at the Auckland Award Ceremony held on December 11 from Dr John Hinchcliffe. The New Zealand Translation Centre in Wellington sponsors a prize each year for the best translation in a modern language to promote the importance of students continuing their study of a foreign language. This year the translation award was for Spanish, and Jennifer, from St Cuthbert's College, was ranked fourth in the examination.

NZEST will run the scholarship examinations in 2002 and 2003.

Statement from NZEST to the Minister of Education regarding the development of the state scholarship examination.

NZEST has applied to NZQA for accreditation for 2002 and 2003.

NCEA Scholarship Subject Panels.

The first response is to claim that it is extraordinarily important. After all, H.G. Wells said, "History is a race between education and catastrophe". We could compare the earnings rate of school leavers and university graduates and find a huge disparity. And we could describe the importance of a developed mind and a liberal values system in continuing the democratic society.

On the other hand, we can look what some knowledge in the forms of science and technology is doing to our environment. James Thurber said " Man is travelling too fast for world that is round. One day he will catch up with himself in a great rear-end collision and man will not know that what hit him from behind was man." There is some knowledge which is dangerous. Some learning is irrelevant and hides us from reality.

Mark Twain said: "I never let my schooling interfere with my education". The great 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein refused to go near Cambridge university either as student or as a professor.

A student at Yale university discussed his 95% grade at the end of the semester with his professor who asked him how he got so many answers right when he attended only one class. He explained that he would have got a hundred percent correct if he had not attended that class.

Of course, Wittgenstein, Mark Twain and the Yale student are remarkable rarities. They are described because they succeeded. It is an absolute necessity to “learn, unlearn and re-learn”. And the vast majority of us need guiding structures to shape and nurture our learning.

Learning never ends. This can result in the huge frustration if we demand perfect knowledge. In fact, the more we know the more we realise how much there is for us to know. Socrates said "The recognition of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom".

It is right that we celebrate your marvellous result. It is a wonderful achievement. But it is merely a pause in a journey that will last you a lifetime.

In celebrating your achievement it gives you the opportunity to acknowledge and respect your proven abilities and the confidence to tackle the next lap of your journey. And as you proceed I hope that you will remember one lesson you have learned at secondary school, that it is important to work with people who will empower you, and who will help you achieve what you can.

The poet T. S. Eliott calls us to task: "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge." Is it important to gain more and more knowledge? Are we improving our community? Are we enhancing the human condition?

My answer is a qualified yes. The more we know the more we can achieve and the more we can do to assist others. But it is crucially important that we measure our knowledge with a system of values. This means that we must focus on achieving a fundamental wisdom that allows us to respect the limitations of our knowledge and the perversity of some kinds of knowledge.

To this end, it is important that we spend time and make the effort to understand what our values are and what they could be. But our values are beliefs and not knowledge claims. So we should transcend the knowledge society and seek to achieve the wisdom community. If we struggle to gain the clearest perception possible of our purposes and ethical principles, an exceedingly difficult task, then we will be taking the journey to find wisdom.

The path to wisdom also requires us to broaden our perspectives about our living. Certainly, it is important to learn as much as we can about something. It is appropriate to be focused as a specialist. But it is also important to learn something about many other dimensions of our experience. We should be able to contextualise our specialist knowledge and give it a fuller meaning and purpose. And in this process, we need to distinguish between opinions, knowledge, beliefs, and wisdom.

It is crucial to each of us to be open to new experiences beyond the classroom. Also, we should read in areas we do not narrowly explore. If are studying science or engineering it is important to make the effort to read some good literature, philosophy history, and poetry. If we study the humanities then we should explore the natural sciences. All of us should understand Maori wisdom and the principles of ethical behaviour.

You are only one of six billion people. You will live for less than 100 years, a mere fragment when measured against the hundred and fifty thousand years of human history and the 15 billion years of planetary history. In terms of cosmic realities we are all, each one of us, exceedingly insignificant. But there never has been another you. There never will be anyone like you in the whole future of the cosmos. Only you have that unique set of talents and unique opportunities to make your unique difference. We desperately need you to find your sense of purpose linked to the highest ethical principles and work for a better community.

You will be criticised. I recall being sternly criticised for discussing the value of loving your neighbour in the Middle East. I was told to take such a value back to the mountains of New Zealand where it might work. Just remember that dogs don’t bark at parked cars.

Congratulations on your achievements. Every best wish to you on your journey as you seek to seize every opportunity to learn so that you will be available to help build the good community, the community that will survive the complex future.