SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 18

SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

VALUE TO EMPLOYERS

GENERAL EDUCATION

(Special to the "Evening Post.") PALMERSTON N., This Day. According to a report presented to the Palmerston North Chamber of Commerce, the executive of the Associated Chambers of Commerce may be a little astray as to the value of the school certificate examination from the viewpoint of a prospective employer of boys and girls who are leaving a secondary school to enter trades outside the orbit of the professions. A sub-committee of the Associated Chambers was asked to look into the matter and it reported that the characteristics necessary in a junior employee were those which could not be wholly vouched for in any form of certificate of- scholastic attainment. However, if such a certificate indicated that the holder had had a definite period of tuition in subjects designated "general" and was informative regarding the integrity, loyalty, and application of the holder, then it would be of value to prospective employers, apart from any examination certificate. This viewpoint was placed by the Palmerston North Chamber before Messrs. J. Murray (rector of the Boys' High School) and G. G. Hancox (dire'etor of the Technical High School) for comment. They pointed out that the regulations governing the holding of free places in post-primary schools were a sufficient guarantee that specialisation at too early a period (as feared) would not take place. The choice of subjects for the certificate had purposely been made a wide one, as it was a general certificate and chambers need not fear that the "general" education, which was described as most satisfactory, would be endangered by the possibility of.too early specialisation.

Messrs. Murray and Hancox suggested that before coming •to a final decision, the Associated Chambers should* invite the Education Department to allow one of its post-primary inspectors to confer with them in Wellington.

One of these inspectors would be able to give most valuable data as to how the certificate worked out at last year's examinations. As a logical sequence *of the desire of the chambers to secure a "general" education, it seemed they should welcome the school certificate, providing, as it did, an incentive to schools to widen their courses and get away from the much more restricted matriculation course, 'which had tended to dominate the curriculum of secondary schools. From an educational viewpoint, it was important that the school certificate should be given a fair trial.