CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 11451, 19 January 1901, Page 3

CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS.

A REFORM REQUIRED. From inquiries that we have made we are now in a position to say that the responsibility for questions beyond the scope of the syllabus at the recent Civil Service examinations rests primarily with the examiners cnosen by the Education Department, and in the second place with the Inspector-Gene-ral, Mr Hogben, whose duty it is to examine all sets of questions before they are sent out for submission, to the candidates and to see that no questions traverse ground not included in the syllabus. The method adopted in connection with these examinations is that' the department—really the In-spector-General—selects certain men, generidly connected with secondary education and in some cases university professors, to act as examiners, one being chosen for each subject. The examiners draw up the question papers and forward them to the Inspec-tor-General, whose duty it is, as we have said, to peruse them carefully and see that the syllabus has been adhered to. The examination papers are all' sent to Wellington, and the whole of the papers in each subject are then sent to the examiner:; who prepared the respective series of questions for judging and marking, the awards made being strictly in accordance with the examiners’ reports. No examiner in preparing questions has any right to go beyond the scope of the syllabus, and should he do so it is the bounden duty of the Inspector-Gene-ral, in the discharge of his official functions, to detect any irregularities and have them rectified. When, however, a wrong question has passed into an examination paper submitted to candidates the candidate does not suffer directly thereby should it not be correctly answered or not answered at all. Whenever a question which is not a legitimate one appears on the paper submitted at an examination, the attention of the Inspec-tor-General is called to it either by one of the supervisors or a. teacher of the candidates. This being done, that question is at once struck out, and in the examining of the papers no notice is taken of it. At the recent Civil Service examinations in Dunedin the attention of the supervisors was called to several questions of this nature, and they instructed the candidates not to answer those questions, but to write on their papers that they are not within the scope of the syllabus. This is all very well, however, where, the supervisors arc conversant with all the details, but in places where the supervisors are not persons so well posted it might, and does, happen that they will not take upon themselves the responsibility of advising the candidates not to answer certain questions, with the result that though mistakes in the answers to those particular questions will not affect the chances of a good pass, yet by reason of their worrying and fretting over the questions (he candidates inaynot.be able to satisfactorily answer other questions, which, if they had not been worried, they could have answered correctly and intelligently. Anyone who knows anything about examinations will at once admit the truth of this, for it will not be disputed that nothing clouds the brain of a boy or girl more than to meet a question touching a subject they are not conversant with. It will thus be" seen that the candidates are placed at a serions disadvantage by reason of questions being wrongfully submitted to them, and the "question naturally arises : How can a recurrence of this unfortunate state of things be prevented? Clearly the Inspector-General is to blame, for he should have detected the before the papers were printed. He should have detected the mistake, but could he? It has been long felt that the Inspec-tor-General has too much to do, for not only has he the onerous duties of Inspector-Gene-ral to perfrom, but he is also the head executive officer of the Education Department, under the Minister. Now, the duties of Inspector-General are sufficient for anv one man to perform, and in the interests of education it is desirable that Mr Hogben should be relieved at once of all duties except those appertaining to the office of Inspector-General, and that the Under-Secretary of Education be appointed to look after the executive duties of the department, as was the case when Dr Hislop was Inspector-General. This has been a course consistently advocated in these columns, and tbo present muddle gives an opportunity of renewing the demand, and hacking it up at an instance of injury being done to our boys and girls by reason of the manifold duties of the Inspector-General, in L;s discharge of the executive work of the department, debarring him from giving adequate attention to the work for which primarily his office was instituted. The necessity for doing this when the late Rev. Mr Habens was Inspector-General was not so great as it is now, for there is this difference between Mr Hogben and his predecessor : Mr Habens hud been trained in the department, and was Under-Secretary when Dr Hislop was Inspec-tor-General, and therefore was quite conversant with all the work, whilst Mr Hogben bos not been trained in the department, and though his abilities admirably fit him for the educational part of the office, he cannot be expected to readily accustom himself'to the discharge of responsible and important duties in which he previously has had no experience. We earnestly trust, now that public attention has again been called to the matter, that the Government will see the wisdom of strengthening the education system of the colony by re-establishing the office of Undersecretary for Education, and giving the colony the full benefit of the Inspector-Gene-ral s services. Another matter in connection with the Civil Service examinations that calls for urgent alteration is the anomaly created by reason of the junior candidates Ire.ng placed on the same level as teachers going up for E and D certificates. Junior Civil Service candidates must be fifteen years of age, and as they generally go up within eighteen months of passing the Sixth Standard, the average ago of candidates may safely be put down at somewhere about sixteen years. This gives them, at the most,’ only two years’ special training in the three compulsory subjects : English composition and spelling, arithmetic, and geography. Now, the papers set in these subjects for the junior Civil Service examinations are also the papers set for the teachers’ examinations. As the average ago of E candidates is nineteen years, it is manifest at a glance that either the junior Civil Service-examination is too severe or the teachers’ E examination is too lenient. The anomaly, however, does not end here, for the Civil Service candidates have papers in two optional subjects set them, and Ihqfe are the same that are set for the teachers going up for the class D examination. The average age of D candidates is twenty-one, so that with at most two years’ training in optional subjects Civil Service candidates are expected to be as cfficent as teachers with four and, in many coses, five years’ special training in the same subjects. Tho absurdity of such a position must be at c.ncc apparent, and comment is needless.