“Little Faith ” In School Cert.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31077, 4 June 1966, Page 18

“Little Faith ” In School Cert.

“I have not got a great deal of faith in school certificate,” said Mr J. R. Richards, principal of Hagley High School, at a meeting of the school board of governors last evening. Hagley High is the sixth biggest school in New Zealand.

“It doesn’t please me,” Mr Richards said. “It was meant to be the culmination of four years’ secondary education, but it is true that after three years’ hard work it is not difficult for anyone of average ability to pass.

“The examination has come to be an accumulation of facts, which, if learnt and put down, gets a pass. No critical faculty is necessary.” Mr Richards said that even the way in which the facts were put down was not important. One of the best attributes for passing school certificate was a good memory. He said he had worked on French examination papers for school certificate and had been “apalled” at what he was expected to do.

“It is a destructive system of marking,” said Mr Richards. “You add up the mistakes, and take off marks for each mistake. As a teacher of languages it appalled me.” Mr Richards said pupils without the slightest chance of passing school certificate were sitting the examination and they could not be prevented from doing so. “They serve a very useful purpose,” he said. “They help the others to pass. About 50 per cent get through, so the borderline people must be grateful to those who sit with no chance.” Mr Richards said many of those who failed after three years at secondary school could have passed if they had worked, harder. Some others would never have passed. Others again would pass in individual subjects but could not achieve the necessary aggregate. The business community was not interested in certificates of education in single subjects—only in school certificates, said Mr Richards. If passes in single subjects were going to count at all, the aggregate pass should be abolished.

The fact that a core syllabus had to be fulfilled, before

school certificate could be attempted, meant that only lip service was being paid to some core subjects. For example, he said, general science was a core subject, and it contained four categories. Schools that put forward candidates in one of the four categories within general science were paying lip service to the other catergories which were not to be attempted in the school certificate examination. Mr Richards said he would favour single-subject examinations rather than the present aggregate pass system. But

there would have to be a 50 per cent mark requirement instead of the 30 per cent pass required in each subject under the aggregate system. Only those with 50 per cent passes in four subjects would be allowed into the sixth form under the system he favoured. Some schools now allowed children without school certificate into the sixth form, because it was not a prerequisite for university entrance. The board decided to discuss proposed changes to the school certificate examination at a later meeting.