MATRICULATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 6, 8 January 1934, Page 8

MATRICULATION.

FIVE YEARS' COURSE.

TASMANIAN SYSTEM PRAISED.

Tasmanian high school students take five years over their matriculation coiirse, and it is the opinion of Dr. C. Malthus, the recently-appointed professor of modern languages at Canterbury College, that a higher standard of scholarship is required for examinees in Tasmania than in New Zealand. Dr. Malthus, in an interview, said that there was a tendency in this country to rate the matriculation examination altogether too cheaply. Matriculation did not stand for anything worth while in New Zealand. The Tasmanian system was much superior. A five year course at the high school generally allowed a promising student to attain a thorough grounding before he went on to the university. The New Zealand system, whereby boys and girls could matriculate at the end of a three years' course, sometimes encouraged them to loaf during the post-matricula-tion year. In any case, the knowledge that there was no imperative need to work hard did not act as an incentive to study. Tasmanian students who did not desire to spend five years at a secondary school could sit an intermediate examination at the end of three years, success in which was generally sufficient to secure them positions in business firms. Approximately 25 per cent of those boys and girls who proceeded to secondary schools in Tasmania completed the five years.