GREATER FREEDOM SOUGHT IN EXAMINATION SYSTEM

Evening Star, Issue 26184, 20 August 1947, Page 8

GREATER FREEDOM SOUGHT IN EXAMINATION SYSTEM

Approval of the general principle of increased freedom in examinations at the four colleges was reached by the Council of the University of Otago yesterday afternoon after briefly considering a report of the Joint Committee of the Senate and Academic Board on prospects of local autonomy. The committee reported that it was considered premature at present to lay down general principles regarding separate universities, but it was felt that certain existing disabilities could be overcome. Tbe Joint Committee recommended that the university should give fuller autonomy to the. colleges by delegating control of detailed prescriptions for papers in arts, science, and music. With a view to giving the colleges further control of the conduct of examinations, the committee recommended that the methods of examining and the nomination of examiners in all faculties be approved within a general scheme providing for: Separate papers in all stages and in all faculties for each college. Purely internal examination in stages I. and 11. of B.A. and B.Sc. In subjects other than B.A. and B.Sc., stages L and 11., by means of one of the following methods of examination :—A board of examiners of the teachers of a subject in two or more colleges operating as at present; an external examiner or examiners where teachers of any subject in any college, or group of colleges, so recommend, an external assessor or assessors acting with the teacher or teachers in any college. The assessor or assessors shall be responsible for ensuring that papers set are of an adequate standard, ensuring in pass degrees that adequate standards are maintained and for this purpose examining such scripts as are deemed necessary, and reading all scripts in masters’ degrees and satisfying himself that adequate standards are maintained. Dr F. G. Soper explained that the recommendations, which would be studied by the Senate next week, were designed to make the examination system easier to operate. It wa§. a step towards autonomy.