SENIOR FREE PLACES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 204, 12 August 1932, Page 3

SENIOR FREE PLACES

ACCREDITING TO BE LIMITED. INTERMEDIATE EXAMINATION. Wellington, Aug. 11. In view of the decision of the Minister of Education to limit the accrediting system, for senior free places in secondary and technical schools this year to a minimum, revised regulations have been prepared for the intermediate examination, which must be taken by practically all pupils. Particulars of the new regulations are published in the Gazette. The intention of the Minister is w conduct an examination chiefly for the purpose of checking the accrediting system throughout schools where accrediting for senior free places has been operating for a considerable time. The department is stated to be of the opinion that the accrediting system,

like any other, requires occasional checking and has no desire to make the test more stringent. An arrangement has been made whereby a pupil will be able to make the most of his best subjects. At the end of this year’s school course a general examination will be carried out at post-primary schools for senior free place. The results will bo available early in January.

Under the new arrangement the public service entrance examination is done away with. This examination has not been used to any great extent by the Public Service Commissioner in recent years owing to the number of candidates who qualified from the university entrance examination. The senior national scholarship examination has also been abolished in accordance with recent decisions The new intermediate examination will serve as a test for senior free place only where in the past the two examinations mentioned were conducted contemporaneously. Certain alterations have been made in compulsory subjects and the values in marking attached to them in order to make the conditions as equal as possible for all candidates. There will in future be no subject iu which a candidate must pass, although there will Tie subjects which must be taken and the result in judging a pass wiM depend upon the average number of marks gained. The English maximum marks have been reduced from 500 to 400. There is now an alternative to handwriting, lettering being admissible in order to suit those entering printing, engineering and other trades. Practical mathematics are now an alternative to arithmetic. In order to pass the examination n candidate must gain not less than 40 per cent of the total assignable marks under the new regulations.