"MATRIC" WEAKNESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 45, 23 February 1939, Page 10

"MATRIC" WEAKNESS

A NARROW EXAMINATION

"Ex Teacher" writes to "The Post":— "I desire to express most cordial agreement with, the letter . signed 'M.K.H.' in Tuesday's 'Post' dealing with the Matriculation examination and its weaknesses, which are many. As things are in New Zealand, 'Matric'; is practically compulsory for all young people who wish to take careers with any prospect of advancement. It is the only passport to the University, and' through that to the degrees which are fast becoming essential to progi-ess in the professions. If 'Matric' were a wide general examination, covering every possible natural talent in the candidate with opportunity of display up to a reasonable standard of proficiency, it would not be so bad. But it is an excessively narrow examination, with one compulsory provision—that of a foreign or a dead language—which is often fatal to otherwise gifted students. "I have seen the evils of this in many cases extending over a period of years. A recent case which came under my direct notice will illustrate this point. A boy who, almost from childhood, had shown remarkable natural gifts in mechanical engineering of all kinds, was sent to one of the local secondary schools which make a feature of 'Matric,' and took a course ill-adapted *to foster his talents which obviously pointed to engineering as a career. He has twice, I- believe, sat for 'Matric' and failed, no doubt, through a complete, and excusable distaste for subjects like French, in which he had no interest whatever. "Under a sensibly organised system of education the boy would have gone straight to the Technical College where; he could have developed his natural bent to the limit of its possibilities. ; But his parents did not want him -to be ,a • 'tradesman' or a 'mechanic1'; they wanted him to go to the University, and take a degree in engineering and so qualify for the higher grades of the profession. But to get to the University he has to go through what is, for him, the purgatory of /Matric' and that's the rub. "There is something radically wrong in the .so-called 'education ladder' which in the many cases like this I proves an insurmountable barrier to worthy climbers capable otherwise of the most useful service to -the community.—'M.K.H.' is quite right." '