UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 11

UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM

THE PROPOSED ABOLITION

(By Telegraph.) (Speoial to "The Evenina Post.") DUNEDIN, This Day. At a meeting of the Otago University Council, tho Professorial Board reported on tho.criticism of the Auckland Professorial Board on that, portion of the report of the Parliamentary .Recess Education Committee dealing with the proposed abolition of Iho University entrance scholarships. The Auckland Board hud resolved that in advocating -the abolition of University entrance scholarships the- Committee had come fo a decision unjustified by the evidence, or by existing conditions. Tho Diineclin'Professorial Board reported that it recognised that in the matter of University entrance scholarships the pupils of. country secondary schools were at a considerable disadvantage compared with those of town schools. It strongly disapproved, however, Of the particular method which the Committee proposed to adopt for the purpose of removing this disability. While admitting further that there might have been, through no fault of the University,: undue dominance of secondary education by the requirements of the University entrance scholarships, the board contended that it did not. necessarily follow that the scholarship system was at fault. Preparation . for . the University entrance scholarships undoubtedly stimulated to ■ a marked degree the study of subjects which w-ere. pre-requisitcs for University courses. Discontinuance of the scholarship system would remove the element o.f-the-competitive examination which waa an important inducement to individual effort oil the part of the student, and would remove also the valuable criticism of examiners who wore experts in their respective subjects. It would in consequence, iv the opinion of the board, react unfavourably on the standard of teaching in the schools, and result, in less satisfactory preparation of some of the best scholars entering the University. Instead of receiving through the scholarship system a small group of picked scholars,. the University would be supplied with a number of students whose training had been less thorough and less extensive in those.subjects -essential for University work. BURSAEY SYSTEM. Under the proposed maintenance bursary system, the University would have no voice in the selection of bursars, nor any poiver in .directing which should be followed in the more important' years of their University study. It was significant that in Edinburgh University it ha.d recently been found that the nomination bursary system had failed to select tho right type of student and its- replacement by the extension of tho existing system of competitive examination had been recommended by a statutory Commission. The proposed system of award of maintenance bursaries would apparently vest in the Education Department, centralised in Wellington, the complete right to say whether or- not individual students should be granted such bursaries. It was impossible to imagine how, uuder , a-systeni of recommendation by individual inspectors, bursaries could be awarded in an impartial and democratic manner on a national basis. No special evidence on the University entrance scholarships was apparently called by the Committee, nor, it seemed, were other methods considered of rogulating. the,., distribution .of existing scholarshipsj. such,, for example, as their division .:• between town- and " country' pupils, or regulation1 of the amounts of scholarships according to the financial resources of the recipients. The board was emphatically of tho opinion that before this drastic change suggested by the Committee be made the subject of. legislation, full evidence should .bo called from all the bodies concerned. ',' . ' The report was noted.