‘EXAMINATION NOBODY WANTS’

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 15

‘EXAMINATION NOBODY WANTS’

Comment On Matriculation

WANGANUI COLLEGIATE SCHOOL BREAK-UP

Dominion Special Service.

WANGANUI, December 16.

“It is onlytoo easy to tilt at an examination that nobody wants, but if it is one of a schoolmaster's chief lunetiotis t. aim at the training of the mind, then Die important thing is the extent to wlmit the mind is being worked mi a subject, said Mr. !•’. AV. Gilligan, headmaster Ot the Wanganui Collegiate School, releiring to the matriculation examination m his annual report at the prize-giving ceremony tonight. , , “One of lite difficulties is that some ot those who set the examination papers tend to forget that, for educational purposes tin answer should not be right ° r wrong but better or worse. A candidate may be asked: — “Tn what year did the Great War break out? —1914.' . “Right. But what good does it do ttie camlidale Io know that fact alone or even to know 1066 and all that? The date is only the beginning of the whole matter. “What has to be tested in an examination? The number of facts that can be recti lied or the way in which certain groups of facts are related in the candidate’s mind? Obviously the latter “Any substituting examination, therefore, lias to test the amount of knowledge for its own sake. Practical ability, enterprise and character, to say nothing of originality, tend to be stunted by the present system. P.N.E.U. System. "With the abolition of matriculation there will have to be a complete reorganization of our curriculum, on Parents’ National Educational Lmon linos, and this school, being free to try out educational experiments', will, it is hojted. be found in the van of true progress.” Earlier in his report Mr. Gilligan referred to the successful application of P.N.E.U. methods in the third forms. "'Two main conclusions can be set down,” he said. “First, the quality ot the work did not suffer through the absence of marks and periodical orders. Secondly, great progress was- made in the course of the year in the ability to grasp what was read a single time, Ave shall continue with these method's next year. . . , “The school certificate examination has much to commend it." said Mr. Gilligan, “but for some reason or other it lifts not achieved the purpose for which it was instituted insofar as it hits - failed to capture the imagination of employers and olliers who still demand matriculation as the sine qua non.”