Students told to fail degrees

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 6

Students told to fail degrees

University applicants to : the Christchurch Teachers’ : Training College have been . told to fail their degrees, i Mrs N. Johnson, a memiber of the selection committee for the college and of the Canterbury Education Board, told a board meeting yesterday that the selection panel had told applicants to fail at least one unit of their degree if they wanted to be accepted for teacher training. She said that of 80 graduates who had applied for entry to the training college last year nearly all would have made excellent teachers. But only 16 had been accepted because the Government had ruled that graduates could comprise only 10 per cent of trainees. Mr R. F. Armstrong said the position was ludicrous. A trainee with eight units towards a degree would Spend two years being

i trained and would complete "his degree anyway. I He suggested that the i board write to applicants or ■ I advertise in newspapers tell- ■ [ ing them that they would ' have a much better, chance I I Of getting into the training ; i college if they failed a unit. ! Mrs Johnson said that ■ that was unnecessary because the selection panel :'had got so fed up with the [rule that it had warned apiplicants at their interviews. The rule did not make sense: while graduates were paid more during their training and in their first job they took only a year to train compared with three years for a person with no university study behind him or her. A person with between five and eight university 'units took two years to Train, which meant that one extra unit would save a year iof training.