Poor plumbing passes probed

Press, 5 March 1988, Page 9

Poor plumbing passes probed

PA Auckland A group of qualified plumbers and gasfitters will sit the national craftsman examinations which were fewer than a quarter of candidates passed last year. ! The experimental testing has been set up by Carrington Polytechnic after a request by the Trades Certificate Board to investigate the results of the last plumbing and gas fitting examinations, j

Last year’s I examinations produced a 24 per cent ave'rage pass rate in three papers.

The j head of the mechanical services department at Carrington Polytechnic, Mr Jim Hawke, [said people who had passed examinations in previous years had been asked to sit ” the

papers. ! A number of tutors had also been; asked to sit them. i He said; the examinations would be sat under stringent i examination conditions’and marked by senior polytechnic staff.

The model answers and marking (schedules used for the examinations had been requested from Mie examiners, and the examinatipn results would be sent .to the Trades Certification Board.

The course supervisor for the department, Mr Fred Jones, said the experiment I had been devised tb find out why the results were so low.

“They are just too low. It is not ; a normal thing. We pride! ourselves in the pass ratejusually achieved here.” I