MATRICULATION

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21034, 9 December 1933, Page 16

MATRICULATION

TEACHERS' OPINION OF PAPERS PURPOSE OF EXAMINATION The standard of some of the papers set for this year's matriculation examination papers was commented on by teachers at Christchurch secondary schools yesterday, when an enquiry was made following the receipt by "The Press" of letters from parents complaining that unduly hard papers were set. particularly in toe subjects 0 f French and history. The general opinion was that if the examination was considered solely as a qualification for entrance to the university the papers were not too difficult, but that some objection might possibly be taken to them on the ground that it was largely used as a school leaving examination by pupils who had no intention of following an academic Ca Th°is view was summed up by Miss P M P. Clark, headmistress of the Girls' High School. "Teachers have been clamouring for so long fp r a higher standard in the matriculation examination regarded as a qualification for entrance to the university that it is inconsistent now to complain if the papers are harder," she said. "The difficulty is that the public has come to regard matriculation as an essential qualification for a pupil leaving a secondary school, although that pupil may have no intention of going on to the university." School -leaving Test. The main problem was to educate the public to realise that matriculation was not in the least necessary for the positions to which most pupils were going when they left school, she said. The need was to make people realise that a school-leaving examination would serve their purpose much better and to have such an examination recognised in those business and other circles where now matriculation, which was primarily an examination arranged by the university for its own purposes, was demanded as an indispensable mark of the completion of a satisfactory secondary school course. It was hard for the schools to have to prepare a large number of pupils for matriculation when those pupils had no intention of going on to the university, Miss Clark added. The imposition of matriculation as the goal of practically all secondary school work also restricted the opportunity of allowing the pupils to take courses suited to their ability and future intentions. However, the Government had promised that a school leaving examination would ho. instituted next year aiming at the matriculation standard of attainment, but giving a wider choice of subjects. The question was whether the public would accept that examination as a mark of secondary school attainment. Special Difficulties. Dr. D. E. Hansen, principal of tho Christchurch Technical College, thought that the papers so far had been quite reasonable. His pupils had j made no complaint, and the standard had been quite satisfactory. The matriculation syllabus, generally, ho thought, could be widened, without lowering the standard, to include such a subject, as economics. The physics syllabus, also, he thought, was too theoretical, and could be brought closer to trade practice with advantage. Most criticism was levelled at the oaper in French. Senior teachers in ihis subject thought that the part of the paper devoted to translation from French inlo English was more difficult than usual. Tho inclusion of a passage from an author such as La Fontaine, writing in more or less oldfashioned French, made the translation difficult for secondary school pupils. Yet. otherwise, and regarded as a test of a pupil's ability before a university course was begun, no exception could be taken to the paper. "It is pretty hard to include in a paper for secondary school pupils, -who have done only three year's work in French, a line that has puzzled learned commentators," said a teacher of French. He referred to the passage from La Fontaine's "Fables," which read: "Un vieux renard . . . sentant son renard d'une lieue." The whole construction was unusual, including a usage of the verb sentir in a difficult sense which almost no pupil was likely to have encountered before, while the use of the noun renard to describe the smell would add to his confusion. The History Questions. Analysing the history paper, one teacher said that the syllabus covered the period from 55 B.C. to the Great War, and yet 75 per cent, of the questions set were on English history of the nineteenth century. Two questions were compulsory, and of the eight others the candidates had to do four. Yet their choice was restricted, because two of these eight were really on European history, dealing with England's relations with Japan, Russia, etc., after 1900, and England's part in the European peace negotiations of 1815. This meant that candielates leally had only six Questions from which to choose four. But even these six really included one question which would bo beyond practically all candidates, for they were asked, in effect, why England had escaped the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, which had affected most European countries. In the end candidates were reduced to choosing four questions out of live, and all live lav laigely or wholly in the nineteenth century. One twenty-fifth of one of the compulsory questions dealt with English history before 1066. Considered Fair. Another teacher said that one or two questions were outside the syllabus as .laid down, but these questions wcio alternative to others which covered work which was dulv prescribed. He put it that the history paper was fair, with a good range and choice of questions. Such questions as the fifth and seventh, with a European bearing were perhaps doubtful, but on the whole lie thought that his pupils found the paper quite reasonable. As the examination was becoming liMilv competitive, purely "swatted" knowltdge was not enough, and questions were being so framed as to exercise the analytical power of th^Sl cuYf nd '' niad £ it far more diffi-