DRUDGERY OF EXAMS.

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 45, 17 November 1936, Page 6

DRUDGERY OF EXAMS.

Undue Emphasis Laid on I the System A warning against the “undue emphasis” laid on the examination system in schools was given in London recently, at the fourth European Mental Hygiene Reunion. Dr. J. R. Rees, Medical Director of the Institute of Medical Psychology, said : “The increasing demand for standardised academic qualifications is certainly the enemy of individual freedom and development. “Work may become a drudgery for (he child who is not a ‘standard model,’ but of whom it is demanded that he i shall get through the matriculation or I some similar examination. “A recent investigation carried out in this country has thrown some doubt on the value of such demands as a method of assessing even the quality of the children’s education. It is clear that a great number of tiresome situations are engendered in the children’s minds, which may do ultimate harm. “Probably in all educational work and in much home-training, we tend to emphasise the importance of success and of failure quite unduly. So long as prizes are given for good brains, and examinations are to be passed by those who have a special type of mind, it will be extremely difficult to avoid stimulating feelings of superiority on the one hand, and inferiority on the other, in the minds of children who are subjected to this educational system." Emphasis was laid by Professor Dr. | K. Herman Bouman, of Amsterdam, on the need for a closer co-operation between school teachers and psychopathologists for the control and elimination of psychological abnormalities in adolescents. "Every school,” he said, “should have its psycho-pathologist, who regularly examines the pupils, and, if necessary, gives advice. This seems to me one of the most urgent demands in the interest of mental hygiene, especially for schools for young people between 16 j and 21."