University Entrance

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22306, 21 January 1938, Page 10

University Entrance

The possibility of a considerable gain is reached in the decision of the New Zealand University Senate to set up a committee which is to consider, with a report from the New Zealand Council of Educational Research, the reform of the entrance (matriculation) examination, particularly by substituting for it " some other " qualification for entrance." The present position is that the university annually examines 6000 boys and girls, or more, of whom the majority do not intend to proceed to the university and of whom, even among those who pass, scarcely any are fit for university studies. The examination is in fact neither a good test of fitness to enter the university nor a test much used to that end: most entrants use their pass merely as the prerequisite for the higher leaving certificate, obtained at the end of a year's post-matriculation work at a secondary school. The major function of the examination is that of a misuse; a pass has come to be regarded, by parents and employers, as r. sort of standard certificate of ability and attainment. Until the last two or three years, the examination served this purpose of sorting and labelling secondary school pupils because no other mechanism had been provided for it; but the provision of the (lower) leaving certificate, awarded on an examination of equivalent difficulty by the Education Department, has cleared the way for reform, which is needed for at least three good reasons. The present entrance examination does not do what an entrance examination should: it does not select candidates who are qualified to begin a university course and exclude such as are not. Second, it has been made to serve an alien purpose and, so long as it remains, will prevent full use 'being made of the proper mechanism for that purpose; i.e., the school leaving examination and certificate. Third, this misuse of an examination tied to the university curriculum has undoubtedly cramped the scope and aims of secondary education, with deplorable results in miseducation, in wasted effort and lost opportunities. It may be added that, although most university entrants -

complete a year's post-matriculation work before they enrol for university classes, too many of them are still inadequately prepared; and the connexion between this fact and the want of a sufficiently exacting and selective entrance test is at least highly probable. In addressing the senate on the resolution to set up the committee, Professor Bell, of Otago University, explained very precisely the various possibilities of reform in the entrance system. It might be reorganised, to the advantage equally of the schools and of the university, he said, by relegating the present entrance examination to the position of a school leaving examination and instituting a new entrance examination to be taken by those only who were proceeding to a university course; by making matriculation conditional on the possession of a school leaving certificate and the passing of certain prerequisite subjects in the new entrance examination; by setting up a secondary schools' board comprising representatives of the schools, Education Department, and University of New Zealand, which would conduct the examinations for leaving certificate and for entrance; by introducing a system of accrediting, confining it at first to the school leaving certificate, and later, when a thorough scheme of training secondary teachers for secondary school work was in operation, a sufficient secondary school inspectorate had been appointed, and experience had been gained, extending it gradually to the entrance examination. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. One may combine with another; one may be a step to another. But as a whole and separately they reject the existing confusion of two purposes and failure to fulfil either. There is little need to fear that a committee so well prompted will produce, a reactionary report.