VALUELESS?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 8

VALUELESS?

PRIMARY CERTIFICATES. DEPARTMENT'S EXPLANATION. At "a recent meeting of the Auckland Education Board discussion took place on the unsatisfactory nature of the primary school certificate, which it considered was entirely valueless in its present form, inasmuch as it carried no evidence of attainment, progress or diligence. Employers previously regarded the .proficiency certificate as a definite basis of attainment, but were unable to view the primary school certificate in the same light in view of the fact that every pupil who had spent a year in Form 2 was entijtled to receive a primary school certificate irrespective of his capabilities. Replying to the Auckland Board's representations, a letter was received from the Education Department at to-day's meeting of the board stating that the primary school certificate was intended to serve as an entrance certificate to post-primary schools.. For purposes external to education it merely meant that the pupil had passed through all the standards of the primary school, in the highest of which he had spent a year, during which he had completed a course of work appropriate to that standard. The letter was received.