ENTRANCE TO UNIVERSITY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27038, 13 May 1953, Page 7

ENTRANCE TO UNIVERSITY

advantages seen in accrediting

EXAMINATION SYSTEM OPPOSED

(New .Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 12. ber/f P S^f« d that an increasing numP ers °ns would welcome an early accr e<liting, and a reverb examination for university aid Resident (Mr E ?h« US , addre ? B at openeopterence of the wew Zealand Post-primary Teachers’ Association in Wellington today nost rJS?I? er ’jeeeH.ed the time' when post-primary education was dominated by the university with its entrance n HS tion - “to««>me way " hl P’iP 113 ' of . all ranges of in- ? nd capacity, were expected * e „ xtract Irom the study of a narrow C j Urse ,,toat background of learning and culture, that knowledge development, and PF°S^ ess - that adjustment to environ--1 at „ spiritual, social, and ?*ell-bemg appropriate to a rnntJnf 6 upon the useful happy, co p tested life of a normal citizen.” A,,Y^ u 5 a l ely - accrediting as introh.ad closely yoked to an ®5? mina tion, Mr Espiner said. This ‘ZP? .accrediting meant no more than that the school estimated that, if the pupil were called on to face the he would score the requisite marks to pass. The present system, in his opinion, was an abortion, defeating the very PU’l’ose of. accrediting, Mr Espiner said. The ideal would be for the university to accept all students who had completed a satisfactory course of not fewer than four years at a post-prim-are school, involving at least one complete year in the sixth form. If tiie university were to refuse this he would prefer the kind of accrediting under which the school made toe selection, rather than that in which the university sat in judgment upon would-be entrants, he said. But yet he would prefer this latter method to a reversion to full-scale examination. Tiesearch,” he said, “has revealed that, in the assessment of examination scripts, there is no absolute. The marks assigned vary greatly from examiner to examiner, and from time to time, even with the sgme examiner. And the candidate also varies greatly in his standards of performance.” Surely a teacher, associated with a pupil for four years of his life, was better placed than an external examiner to gauge his right to embark on university study. Mr Espiner said. A student judged capable of profiting from university, teaching should be admitted. irrespective perhaps of what subject or subjects he had