ON THE UPGRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 105, 6 May 1939, Page 12

ON THE UPGRADE.

UNIVERSITY TO-DAY. EDUCATIONAL METHODS. EXAMINATIONS CRITICISED.

Problems confronting university education in Xew Zealand were discussed by Professor G. W. von Zedlitz, of Wellington, in an oration given last night at the graduation ceremony of the Auckland University College, held in the Town Hall.

I he whole world was beset by educational problems, lie said. A fundamental (iiw for all civilised peoples. had arisen from setting aside the older dogmas and lielicfs which ha<i formed t lie moral basin for education. There were also local problems, and those alTe.-ting the F>om inion were attributable to the comparatively recent introduction of communal responsibility for the education of the young. The New Zealand university system had important and solid excellences, and one feature of it was that material considerations preponderated. Xevcrthele.se it wan a vicious system. He explained how the University of London, on which the New Zealand University was based, came to l>e established as a non-resident, secular and purely examining institution. No one at that time thought its form wan desirable, but something had to be done. New Zealand had taken from the University of London what was bad in it, and it was taken became it suited New Zealand at that time. Results had been not so bad, Professor von Zedlitz added, but the system necessarily laid the whole stress on syllabuses and examination. In other words, it emphasised what was relatively unimportant and omitted what was relatively important. Education wan carried on for the sake of the person being educated, and for no other purpose whatever. Nevertheless, the speaker believed that a gradual change was taking place, and that the university was on the upgrade. Accrediting was being substituted for matriculation, thus freeing the schools from nn impersonal outside control, and leaving them to a greater extent masters of their own fate. I'rofcssor von Zedlitz suggested another reform to the university, that of cutting out much of the examining done by the university.* That could be best achieved by abolishing the system of paying teacher* in the affiliated colleges for examining on the basis of the amount of the work they did. Out of nearly £10,000 paid this year, nearly £12,000 went to examiners t-esjdent in New Zealand. If that sum were distributed annually to all professors by way of addition to salary, in payment for work that was really part of a professor's ordinary duty, the complexity and length of examinations would, be found marvellously to diminish and the result would be equally good. The purely examining body, lie added, had one defect: that it hail a terrible disposition to ignore the whole sociological aspect of science, but he was glut! to say that there was a prospect that a research fellowship in social and industrial relations would be established in this country. None would deny its value.