MATRICULATION.

Evening Star, Issue 21318, 24 January 1933, Page 6

MATRICULATION.

All over the dominion anxious pupils have been awaiting the results of the matriculation examination, which serves more purposes than that of entrance to the University. The interest may be divided at no distant time. The Senate lias approved of a proposal to hold two examinations in future, one for candidates for the University and the other, on the results of which a leaving certificate would be given by the Education Department, for those who merely desire a certain hall-mark of knowledge to serve them as a recommendation for employment. The papers for the two examinations would he mainly the same for a beginning, with a few alternative subjects of a practical and technical nature for those not continuing their studies. That makes a divergence from the first suggestion, which was that the Education Department should conduct its own separate examination for the leaving certificate. The department, however, was not willing to add to the number of its examinations, and if that course had been followed there would have been a real danger of a large proportion of pupils, knowing the value of matriculation and not knowing how an alternative test would impress employers, adding to the burden of both themselves and authorities by sitting for both. When the new certificate has established itself it may be possible to make the two examinations entirely separate. Conceivably by that time the passing of a more technical and less academic test may bo recognised as a better passport for immediate employment than the one now called tor. In that case the embarrassing pressure on the matriculation examiners made by the enormous number who seek their cachet would bo relieved, and there would be less difficulty in raising the standard for University entrance. Another benefit would be that the extreme domination which is exerted now by demands of the purely academic matriculation examination over the courses of secondary schools, only a minority of whose pupils ever go on to the University, would be relaxed. In a less measure that object jnay bo served by the present plan. A few years ago it was sought to find an alternative to the matriculation examination in accrediting. The obstacle which proved fatal there, we understand, was the difficulty of obtaining recognition for medical, engineering, dental, and other professional students who should have begun their courses in such a manner. To admit to the University by accrediting students who would have uo alternative there to an arts course might have been only to make disadvantages for them at a later stage. When the two examinations are eventually separated, however, it may not bo impracticable to substitute accrediting tor the school leaving test. The present time is one of transition ; it is only gradually and tentatively that an improved final system can be worked out. The plan of a conjoint examination, however, which has been approved by the Senate, follows

the recommendation of the Entrance Board, which is representative of both the Academic Board of the University and the Education Department. There seems good chance, therefore, of its being accepted by the latter authority.