Policy On U.E. “Sound”

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 1

Policy On U.E. “Sound”

“You can select university students so that you have no failures except the psychotic breakdowns, but in doing so you automatically deny the opportunity to try to many who will succeed,” said the President and Vice-Chan-cellor of Dalhousie University Nova Scotia (Dr H. D. Hicks) in an interview in Christchurch yesterday.

“Dr F. J. Llewellyn and your Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon) have asked whether New Zealand can afford its present university entrance policy,” said Dr Hicks. “I ask whether New Zealand can afford to abandon its present system. “In a small country human resources are of greatest im-

portance, and this is the only way you can compete in a changing world,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be too worried about the cost. I think New Zealand’s policy is sound. I also think the English system is wrong. It begins selecting pupils for exclusion at the age of 11 years. How many thousands would have succeeded if they had had the chance?” Dr Hicks said he understood that those progressing were about halved by the school certificate examination in New Zealand and halved again by university entrance, and by no means all who qualified entered the universities. Even if it was assumed that a quarter of the age group entered the university, that was not too many. A third would be a good figure. “Dr Llewellyn’s boast that only 3 per cent of his students at Exeter fail to graduate is significant only because more have been failed from school days upwards," said Dr Hicks.

“Our grandfathers had a simple life. We need more and better-educated people to cope with the sociological and technological demands of today. Therefore more must go to university.” Dr Hicks said he made all these claims deliberately as “a Canadian graduate (Mount Allison), trained in law (Oxford and Harvard), a politician by profession (Minister of Education in Nova Scotia from 1949, Premier from 1954 to 1956, and Leader of the Opposition from 1956 to 1958), a university president (Dalhousie, since 1963, the only university east of Montreal with a full range of professional schools and a roll of 4000 planned to double by the mid-seventies).

“Nova Scotia is blessed or plagued with nearly a dozen degree-granting universities for a population of a million,” said Dr Hicks. “New Zealand should press on with university expansion/'