EXTRA-MURAL STUDY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22436, 24 June 1938, Page 3

EXTRA-MURAL STUDY

ANOMALIES FOUND IN SYSTEM COLLEGE COUNCILS INVITED TO CONFER (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, June 23. An abuse that had recently crept into the system of extra-mural students at Victoria University College was mentioned at to-night’s meeting of the college council by the principal (Professor T. A. Hunter), who brought forward a recommendation by the professorial board that the councils of the other constituent colleges be invited to discuss the increasing tendency in secondary schools to hold classes for degree examinations. Under the system of exempted students, said Professor Hunter, provision was made for a student who, in the opinion of the board, was unable to attend classes to get exemption from one or more classes, and that was widely availed of. Up to recent years, provision was made that a student, to obtain a bursary, must not have matriculated, the bursary always being held at a college. If a student wanted to do extra-mural work, he matriculated, and thus lost his chance of getting a bursary. For some reason, that restriction had been removed, and the professorial board was now faced with the difficulty that a student outside the main centres could attend a secondary school, do certain degree subjects and have a bursary awarded him on that year’s work. The position was anomalous, because such a student got in _ his first year’s work and then obtained his bursary. There were no fewer than 60 students attending secondary schools in the Wellington district who were doing university work. Mr T. Forsyth: All outside the main centres?

"Abuse Has Crept In” Professor Hunter: Yes. I don’t think that it was ever the idea for exempted students not only to keep terms at a secondary school but also to get a bursary. The idea was that such a student should have the right to prepare himself to sit for university examinations. It seems to the board that an abuse has crept in regarding exemption. It is also educationally unsound, because it means that some of the best teachers in the secondary schools must be giving up the time to university work which they should be giving to ordinary pupils. Steps should be taken to get rid of the anomaly, and the opinions of the councils of the other university colleges should be obtained. Mr M. H. Oram suggested that the matter be referred back to the professorial board to set out categorically the abuses that existed and the steps it proposed to take to deal with them. In its present form, the whole thing was all too vague, he said. It would be a disaster if a demand arose for the abolition of extra-mural privileges. Dr. T, D. M. Stout said the position was grossly anomalous. A boy in the sixth form in a secondary school in the main centres might be doing exactly the same work as a boy in the country, but the latter could do the first year of his university course, which a city boy was unable to. do because he could not get exemption. Boys at Wanganui College could do all their first year’s university college work, whereas boys at Wellington College could not. On the motion of Mr Oram, it was decided that the council invite the other constituent councils to discuss the anomalies that had crept into the system of extra-mural students.