A MONOTONOUS TYPE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 46, 23 February 1934, Page 16

A MONOTONOUS TYPE

BRED BY MATHEMATICS NEW ZEALAND SYLLABUS The criticism that New Zealand tends ■to breed a monotonous type of citizen whose thinking is on very stereotyped lines may possibly contain an element of justification, according to the impression formed by Mr. K. E. Bullen, lecturer in mathematics at the Auckland University College, who recently returned ,to New Zealand after spending two and a *lialf years furthering his studies in England (states the "Herald"). In discussing more particularly the standard of the mathematical syllabus in New Zealand in a report presented to the college council, Mr. Bullen says that his salient impression is that the standard of the New Zealand University syllabus in mathematics is very low—in fact, lower than that of every university and university college in Great Britain and Ireland that he became acquainted'with. He found that some of the English public and secondary schools which specialised in mathematics covered almost the equivalent of the final year of the New Zealand honours syllabus m mathematics; "I found that New Zealanders who had gained first-class honours in mathematics here, and were admitted as affiliated students to Cambridge were at a considerable disadvantage as compared ■ with similar affiliated Btudents from the English provincial universities, unless they had spent some time beforehand in reading beyond the New Zealand syllabus," said Mr. Bullen- . . . REVISION SUGGESTED. "Although the actual causes of New Zealand's low standard appear rather complex, there seems.to me to be one s{ep which could in the circumstances help matters considerably, and that is, to include the elements of the calculus in the first-^ear degree course in.addition to what is already there. This would make the Pure Mathematics I course slightly heavier than at present, but if! would pave the way for more advanced work in the later . stages in both . pure and applied mathematics. "One of the actual chief causes of the low standard is, I think, to be found in the fact' that mathematics, being a compulsory subject in the university entrance examination, is therefore necessarily of low standard and that the university Stage I Mathematics is required to assume nothing beyond the entrance syllabus. It aeems to me that an improvement could be made by removing, algebra and geometry from the compulsory requirements of the entrance examination' and inserting an optional subject, mathematics, of higher standard than the present compulsory one. Arithmetic could be retained as compulsory, and the present compulsory algebra and geometry might be replaced by some other subject or subjects. SPECIALISATION DESIRABLE. "There are a number of other matters affecting New Zealand standards which are bound up with the general education policy in this . country,, and this in turn is to some extent determined, by New Zealand's special circumstances. One feature is that there is a tendency to greater specialisation in England than here. .Although there are some universities in Britain-, in which the range of subjects taken for a degree equals that in New Zealand, my impressions are that on the average the range taken here is lower than in England. : "Whether or not this is a good thing in New Zealand's special circumstances" it all adds to the difficulty of reaching high standards in this country. My actual impression is that we tend to spread ourselves a little too much in fixed directions, and are also rather over-centralised."