SENIOR FREE PLACES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1932, Page 10

SENIOR FREE PLACES.

EXAMINATION SYSTEM. th ca wi u STANDARDISING WORK." TECHNICAL COLLEGE PROTEST. of £5 „;:r\ 0E "Although no official announcement ta has been made sinee jthe statement from the Minister, in which examinations gi( for senior .free place awards were fore- vs cast, arrangements for holding the P® examination are in train. It seems, therefore, that.-the Very retrograde step ™ of designing the work of the school to meet examination requirements instead of making all examinations follow the work of the school is to be reinstituted. These remarks were contained in the report of the principal of the Wellington n( Technical College, Mr. R. G. Ridling, which was presented to the board 01 g The principal continued: "This brings M A very great danger in that the work cc "will tend to be standardised in all tech- ?/ nical colleges and will also tend to be ™ dissociated from industry. In the past very careful records of the pupils woik have been kept in all schools and an efficient system of testing the fitness of the pupils to proceed to more advanced work has been in operation. The pro-. T posed examination will not assist in w determining the fitness of pupils for tJ senior free place awards, and may mate, rially injure the untrammelled system which has enabled the technical high schools to be so closely associated with the facts <A life." £, Freedom Valued. it Following the presentation of the ft report the principal said one of the things which had made technical work " bo important was the freedom in the formation of the syllabus which was so " desirable in order that colleges could keep i* close touch with industry. Pupils in different subjects expressed themselves in different ways. A boy in a engineering would express himself bet- " ter in drawings and workmanship than £ in written English, and the same applied ® to art pupils. If they had to sit down and do a written examination some of t] them would "crash," as they would 4 suffer a handicap on the marks in Eng- p lish, which were 500, against 200 for k other subjects. If the examination was b held, teaching would be on the lines of 11 the syllabus laid down by the Department, and if anything could he done to stop the examination it should be done. a The pupils were tested by the principal c each half-year, which was the best , method of finding out if the pupils were \ fit to go on. The examination in the t school followed the work of fhe school, ] but an external examination would not < do so. Since the Minister had decided ( on the examination, assistant masters i had asked to be allowed to alter the : courses. "Examination Mad." "I think this country has gone examination mad," said Mr. J. N. Wallace, who asked whether it would be wiser to 'Tmck" against the Department or to try to g"t the Department to set an examination suited to the conditions of the college. It -was agreed that the chairman and principal should wait upon the Minister of Education, the Hon. R. Masters, and discuss the whole subject with him.