EXAMINATION PASSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 6

EXAMINATION PASSES.

it is commonly recognised among educationists in the Dominion that the standard of the university entrance examination—and therefore of first-year work at the university— is too low. The professorial board of the Auckland University College showed its poor regard for the entrance test last year by taking the unprecedented step of allowing • any professor to examine a student, even though he had matriculated, to establish whether lie was fitted to take advantage of university work. Closely in touch with university opinion as it is, the Senate cannot but be fully, even uncomfortably, aware of the views held in this regard by a considerable proportion of the professorial staff. Yet how two decisions made at its rocent session will aid in the raising of standards lis hard to see. The Senate has reduced the minimum marks required in matriculation English from 40 to 35 per cent, while in the Bachelor of Arts degree one subject | instead of two will be counted as a unit. While Ihc percentage of marks required in the entrance examination as a whole doubtless remains the same, in spite of the lowering of the requirements in English, the standard in one subject—nnd that the most important—must be lowered. This decision in regard to the subject of" English is curiously at variance with the Senate's decision that no student should be presented lor accrediting until the completion of four years' secondary school study. That was obviously an effort to raise standards; but why make English easier to pass after four years' study than it was after three years? If matriculation requirements are eased, first-year work at the university cannot be so good as it is even now. And the permission granted a student to take one subject at a time will not help. In theory it might be argued that the student, will read more widely in the -ingle subject than in two or more. In practice, students being what they are at a university where work is predominantly part-time, it is exceedingly doubtful whether that will be the result at all. If not, then standards may become lower still.