STUDENTS CRITICISED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21471, 20 April 1933, Page 10

STUDENTS CRITICISED

DEPENDENCE ON TEACHERS SYDNEY LECTURER'S VIEW, That there was an unfortunate tendency in the present - high and secondary school education for students to be taught rather than to learn, was the opinion expressed by Mr. E. H. Booth, lecturer in physics at the University of Sydney, the other day. Most of the students coming to the university, he said, had not been taught to acquire knowledge for themselves, and had fallen into the habit of being taught only. They had no idea of how to read a text- book arid profit by it, and they seemed to think that the whole of their work was to be done in the lecture room. This, Mr. Booth said, accounted for the fact that many students with brilliant leaving~and intermediate certificate passes were comparative failures when they entered the University or Teachers' Training College, and were thrown on their own resources for acquiring information. f The standard of teaching in the secondary schools was generally high, so that the examination of students on what they had been taught was not a fair test of individual capabilities when students had to read and think for themselves