Matriculation

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 260, 30 July 1937, Page 13

Matriculation

i Sir, —'The figures from the Education Department returns with regard to matriculation were most interesting. I am glad to hear that no juggling goes on with our children’s futures. The average increase of successful candidates was 25 per cent, more in this year than iu any other year which was quoted from Education Department returns. I have not the slightest doubt that our examiners do their best to ensure uniformity of marking, but that does not alter the fact that different examiners will vary in their markings of the same set of papers. Dr. Malherbe has already given instances of this. I quite agree that a wide variety o£ subjects is essential to provide a good general background to any education, but a student should have gained that background in his three or four years’ creditable work at high school. It seems, therefore, unnecessary to require him to matriculate, if he must, in so many subjects, before he can enter university to study his profession. Sometimes .two or three valuable years of a student’s life are wasted, endeavouring to pass this matriculation, with all its chances to pass or fail.—l am, etc., M.K.N. Hawke’s Bay, July 25.