Reasons And Remedies For Students' Failures

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28234, 23 March 1957, Page 12

Reasons And Remedies For Students' Failures

The reasons for the high failure rates among first-year university students are more than academic, said Mr G. S. Troup, the university liaison officer, in his address to the mathematics and physics section of the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

“The student’s powers of concentration, stamina, interest in the work in hand, and motivation towards it are of equal, if not more, importance,” he said. For this reason, the welfare of students was of prime importance. There is a great need for more people of the “residential house warden type,” and “dean of the student type,” with whom students could discuss theij; problems, said Mr Troup. The establishment of many more residential colleges, he believed, would do much to alleviate the problem. In the discussion which followed it was suggested that the practice in some universities in the United States, of allowing a student a period of probation during which his chances *of success could be measured, could be followed in New Zealand. In this way likely failures “could be spotted early” and their place could be filled by more promising students. Mr J. B. Gregory, lecturer in physics at Canterbury University College, said that he fully sup-

ported Mr Troup’s suggestion that courses, preliminary to Stage I should become part of the college syllabus. Their introduction could do much to bridge the gap between the arts and the sciences However, at present the resources at Canterbury College were inadequate to cope with more classes. For the same reason, the probationary period suggested could not be adopted. Until classes were reduced to a more manageable size and more generous staffing was available few experiments of this nature could be attempted. To a suggestion that the high failure rates may be connected with the accrediting system for university entrance, Mr Troup replied that the number of failures ha J not increased since its inception. No examination system can provide a true indication of the student’s prospects and it appeared that a personal assessment would be of much value in this direction, he said.