^ One of the posts about it online talked about how only a few people got the license and they had a school-wide assembly to give the award. I guess that varies by region as well.
Yeah, huh. I really should emphasis the 'not a big deal' part. Like, it was maybe a minute or two, once per week, I don't think there was a certificate or anything. I think the names of people who had the pen were put up on a small display board (which of course grew from just a few to the entire class, over the course of a term or two), and it was just done with the people in the class, which was just under 30 I think.
I can't understand why it would be something you make a big deal out of, at least without seeing some of the logic behind why it's being done. For example, is it from a school in a socially deprived area, or one with low adult literacy rates? In that case bigging up kids whose writing is clear and coherent is a great thing, since it encourages literacy, as well as letting these kids achieve something. Hm, I'm curious now about why it was a big thing.