MR DANKS’S VIEW Restriction Of Students

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 26

MR DANKS’S VIEW Restriction Of Students

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN, May 11.

Restriction of access to universities as a means of reducing expenditure was dismissed as bad educational practice by the chairman of the University Grants Committee (Mr A. J. Danks) at the University of Otago graduation ceremony on Saturday. Delivering the graduation address, Mr Danks said it remained true, even after allowances were made, that university outlays in New Zealand were modest in relation to expenditures in other places. “Overseas salary scales for university staff testify, insofar as monetary comparisons are adequate, to the insufficiency of our own rates.” But he believed there was a possibility that the additional sums the universities required to cope with the growth in student numbers, and to allow for some betterment in staff, buildings and equipment, might outrun the ability of the purse of the community to provide. The greater part of Mr Danks’s address was devoted to contesting the suggestion that costs could be reduced by restricting the flow of entrants into universities. Tracing the likely effects- of

this measure back to second-1 ary schoools, he concluded i that restriction on entry i would be unlikely to reduce , total expenditure on education. He said it had been suggested that restriction of entry to universities would divert some students of marginal abilities into technical institutes where . they do themselves and the taxpayers more justice and reduce the failure rate in the universities. “Reducing the numbers entering the universities requires a raising of entrance standards,” he said. “This would have to be done by means of a harder examination. “In practice this would mean basically qualifying for university entrance at the upper sixth form level instead of, as at present, the lower sixth form level.” But since some threequarters of' entrants to universities come after a year in the upper sixth form the universities might have to be given the power to select entrants to effectively achieve a significant reduction in numbers, he said. This would not be easy and would imply some waste of ability in the form of. potential graduates who were unable to meet rigorous academic entry conditions. “Pressure to meet more stringent university entrance standards must greatly in-

crease the importance and incidence of strictly academic Content in school courses, probably right down to the third forms. ■ “There would be no nonSense about opting into technical; institutes, “Work would be directed towards meeting the need to get into the front part of the academic queue lining up for the universities,” said Mr ■He said the flexibility which was such a desirable and distinctive element of New Zealand's university and institutions would be lost with higher academic university entrance requirements. Mr Danks suggested two alternative ways in which universities might ease the pressures of size from within. First, they could make a detailed appraisal of the conduct of their affairs and how this might be modified to reduce waste, and increase effectiveness., ■ A second prospect for economy lay in the growth of student numbers. “Increased size may produce what economists call ‘scale economies’,” said Mr Danks. “These will be most readily apparent if universities use the period ahead for consolidation of existirig enterprises rather than for diversifying their academic activities.”