HAPPY EXIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 99, 23 October 1936, Page 8

HAPPY EXIT

TEACHERS PLEASED

PROFICIENCY EXAMINATION

That most primary teachers will be elated to think that the coup de grace is shortly to be given to the proficiency examination is the opinion of Mr. F. L. Combs, president of the New Zealand Educational Institute. "The proficiency has been lingering superfluously on the educational stage for quite a few years," he said. "There is no working teacher who does not know how Seriously it has thwarted progressive and enterprising educational development. No educational stand-easy is implied by the abolition of the proficiency. Given the smaller classes, the increased accommodation, and the more generous equipment, particularly in school libraries, that have long been' demanded, internal testing and recording are bound to be increased to a marked .extent. They will be part and parcel of the technique of individualising education, of ascertaining the gifts and aptitudes of every child. Continuous records of such personal and intimate insjght are essential if education is to.be worth the name. AN EDUCATIONAL SIEVE. "What has been got rid. of is a test which aims'to. be fair but in fact acts as an educational sieve through which all children have to be forced regardless of individual differences. The actual examination takes place in Standard 6, but in some ways its baneful, stultifying effect is felt as low as Standard 1," said Mr. Combs. "As in December, 1937, the proficiency will be a thing of the past some sort of leaving certificate will be required for pupils leaving the primary school ex-Standard 6. This brings no difficulties where, as in England, the certificate is reduced to a minimum, or where f. indicates in some detail attainment, gifts, arid personal qualities. Nor need the least concern be felt for the efficiency of the schools. Some who are in doubt ask: 'How is unanimity to be preserved?' It must be remembered that unanimity in education is one of the chief signs of inefficiency—a really damning indication of mass instruction. "At the same time a general level of \real efficiency will still be demanded, a level that will rise as classes become smaller and schools are better equipped. This general level, along with the increased elasticity given to aims and methods by the abolition of external tests, Will be preserved very much as in the past by the general supervision of the inspectorate. "Freed from the preparing and holding of proficiency examination, the inspectorate will have much more time in which to do that inspirational work which is perhaps more in need than anything else in our New Zealand schools today. While the proficiency has been an incubus to working teachers, it has, as many inspectors would readily admit, been an unwelcome official obsession to them. "It is safe to.say," Mr. Combs concluded, "that every educationally-! minded person connected with our edu-1 cation system will welcome the aboli-j tion of the proficiency examination." ■