Professor Defends Examination System

Northern Advocate, 4 May 1940, Page 5

Professor Defends Examination System

[Special to “Northern Advocate”] AUCKLAND. This Day.

Professor J. Rutherford, chairman of the professorial board of the Auckland University College, last night defended many aspects of the examination system. Professor Rutherford was speaking at the graduation ceremony. There had been in recent years a good deal of serious criticism of examinations, Professor Rutherford said. Further, there had been ample evidence in the last few months of dissatisfaction with certain of last year’s university examinations in New Zealand. Footing Out Favouritism. In defence cf examinations in general it should be painted out, he said, that the system was developed during last century primarily as a means of rooting out the old system of favouritism and influential patronage. It must be regarded as an invaluable protection against the deliberate and corrupt partiality of the system which preceded it. Examinations also performed the positive service of helping to maintain and improve intellectual standards. Without the prospect of some rigorous test there was a great danger that students’ reading would be aimless and unsystematic, often lazy and dilettante. The examination demanded that a student should take careful stock of his learning, avoid bad gaps in his knowledge and revise it from time to time. Perfection Not Claimed. He freely admitted that no examination system could be perfect. Examinations were a somewhat mechanical measure of ability. Examinations did not necessarily suit the exceptional or the unduly nervous candidate. Examiners were also subject to the frailties of the human kind and might have their moments of aberration. But before ascribing erratic results to the idiosyncracies of temperamental examiners, it should be noted that there were cei’tain inherent difficulties in examining. The examiner was called upon, for instance, to assess not only quantity of knowledge, but quality of thought and style. Team Work Necessary. No amount cf excellent qualities on the part of individual examiners was in itself sufficient. There must he association and consultation. Team work was necessary at every point. In New Zealand, however, there were geographical difficulties in the way. Annual conferences in all subjects for degree were ruled out on the score of expense. Correspondence was far less efficient, although it met the cases in some measure. There was also difficulties in conducting examinations by a panel in each centre in turn. There was no machinery for equalling the standards of one year's examiners with the next year’s, save the imperfect methods of the scaling officer. Both the university authorities .and those of the college were aware of the needs of the case, and were doing all they could to reduce those difficulties and causes of grievance.