The Higher School Certificate (HSC) first in course awards for Year 12 students in New South Wales have been revealed and among the top students are at least three Greek Australians.
Anargyros Efthymiou Kallos from the Secondary College of Language, Ashfield Boys Campus came first in the state for Modern Greek Continuers and Modern Greek Extension.
Anargyros told The Greek Herald he wanted to thank his family, current teacher Maria Lomis, and classmates for their support during his HSC, and encouraged all Greek Australian students to learn Greek.
“Speaking Greek at home, thanks to the persistence and initiative of my father, made me fall in love with the language and the culture,” Anargyros said.
“As part of being an active member of the diaspora, we all assume a responsibility to preserve our sense of Greekness or Hellenism, whether that be through language, culture, history etc. Engaging with the Greek language has been a most cherished experience, and I hope to further enrich my knowledge going into the future.”
For Modern Greek Beginners, Anna-Maria Parissis from the NSW School of Languages came first in course.
Toby Maroulis from the Northern Sydney Institute – Meadowbank College came first in NSW for his Electrotechnology Examination.
For Classical Greek Continuers and Classical Greek Extension this year, Thomas Henderson from Sydney Grammar School topped the state.
These students were part of 126 of the state’s highest-achieving students recognised by the NSW Education Standards Authority in a ceremony on Wednesday.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet spoke at the ceremony and said it was an amazing achievement to top a HSC subject.
“I hope you’re very proud of your hard-won success,” Perrottet said in a video message. “It is inspiring to see your resilience and perseverance to be awarded the top result you’ve worked so hard for.”
Of the 135 awards given out, public schools took out 54 first-in-course places, which included 36 top prizes for students studying at language schools.
Thirteen awards went to students from fully selective schools, 15 were from Catholic schools and 59 were from private schools.
About 65,000 students will receive their much-anticipated HSC results by SMS, email and online from 9am on Thursday, December 15.
*Please Note: The above students are those The Greek Herald could identify by their Greek name. If you believe you should be on this list, please send an email to info@foreignlanguage.com.au.
