THE EXAMINATION EVIL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 300, 15 September 1936, Page 10

THE EXAMINATION EVIL

Question of Abolition EDUCATION MINISTER HITS OUT Matriculation Condemned By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, September 14. “Ono reform which should have the , support of all sensible educators is the abolition of the proficiency examination,” said the. Minister °i ■ Education, Hon. P. Fraser, speaking at Parnell School to-day. “We should insist that education <n its widest sense shall have full scope and that children should not merely be hurried on through the year to pass an examination. /‘lnternal, examinations are useful as a guide to teachers upon how best to help the child, but we do not want them to ex ercise tyranny. Children should not be stuffed with information as their mothers stuff chickens for the table. The Government’s ideal is to give the child a chance from the kindergarten, for which we are planning extensions, onward to become fully educated. We do not want to place, a.'hurdle which will deny or postpone the post-primary education of any child. It should be allowed to go on naturally to secondary, technical or any other form of eduea--tibn as the case may be. This is a matter for serious consideration by college councils and the university senate. Those pupils who feel that it is their function in life to go on to the university must have an opportunity to do so. The matriculation examination is on trial to-day.. It is an 'undoubted fact that .very few matriculated -students actually enter the university. The examination has become not a test for university education, but a standard of commercial efficiency.” Addressing himself to Mr. T. U.* Wells, president of the Auckland University College and chairman of the Auckland Education Board, who was ■present, Mr. Fraser continued: “Apparently matriculation is a way of getting some revenue sub rosa for the colleges, ■ so that we have to deal with a vested interest. The colleges will need to find some means of I getting the' revenue' without it.” - The Minister added that.there was too much tendency at present on the part of educationists to declare that their particular branch was the Cinderella of the education system, and this applied particularly to the university. It was not a helpful approach and was contrary to the idea of education as a continuous whole. The question, was not .what share each branch of education should be given, but what were its actual requirements. “There is nothing of which I will take less notice than arguments in the Cinderella strain,” added the Minister, “or references to how much is spent in Britain. The sooner documents containing that sort of thing are burned the better. The question is how much is required to place university education and the Auckland University College on a proper footing and how much is available/’ . j