MATRICULATION

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 48, 25 August 1921, Page 12

MATRICULATION

TO THE SDITOR.

Sir,—Through the medium of your paper I should like to point out a Jew of the trials and the hardships suffered by matriculation candidates who have to earn their own living. For the average boy studying at a secondary school for about 35 hours per week, including evening preparation, it takes froni three to four years' hard work to pass this examination. Now, the boy at work comes home after a hard day in a workshop or an office, has a hurried meal, and rushes back to an evening school for two or three hours. . This he does for perhaps two or three nights per week, thus having from five to six- hours under the* supervision of a teacher, onefifth of the time tho more fortunate college boy has. The other nights are generally taken up, one,with drill, and the other with football practice or something similar. Thus, it will be seen that, provinding he does not work overtime, the most he can do is from twelve to sixteen hours' study per week; Now, Sir, jt would only be fair that unsuccessful candidates working under such conditions should be credited with the subjects in which they have passed, for it seems absurd that they should be forced to keep on studying those subjects, while they could give more of their limited time to their weaker ones. I, therefore, suggest that the University Council should alter the matriculation syllabus in order to equalise, as much as possible, ,the difference between the evening and the day student, if only to safeguard the health and the vitality' of the former. —I 1 am, etc., P. J. C. CLARKE. 24th August.