DOMINION SYSTEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 15

DOMINION SYSTEM

DEFECTS AND REFORMS

STRESS ON EXAMINATIONS A PROFESSOR'S CRITICISM "A purely examining university is regarded as an evil all over the world, but considering the admitted - viciousness of the system, wa have*not dono so badly," 6aid Professor G. W. von Zedlitz, of Wellington, in cn address at the Auckland University Collego graduation ceremony in the Tqwii Hall last night upon some problems- confronting university education in Ne:v Zealand. The whole -world was beset by educational problems, said the professor. A fundamental one for all civilised peoples had arisen from the setting aside of older dogmas and beliefs which, had formed tho moral basis of education. There were also local problems, and those which affected New Zealand were attributable to the comparatively recent introduction of communal responsibility for the education of the young. The New Zealand university system had important and solid excellences, and one feature of it was that material considerations preponderated, but it was nevertheless a vicious system. Prototype in London The speaker went on to explain how the University of London, on which the University of New Zealand was originally modelled, came to be set up as a non-resident, secular and purely examining institution. None at the time, he said, thought that the form of it was desirable, but something had to be done, and the best way of avoiding the difficulties was adopted. "What New Zealand took from the University of London was what was bad in it, and it was taken because it suited New Zealand at the time. ,

After remarking that the results had not been so bad, Professor von Zedlitz said the system necessarily laid the' whole stress on syllabuses and examinations; in other words, it emphasised what was relatively unimportant and left out what was relatively important. Education was carried on for the sake of the person who was being educated, and for no other purpose whatever. In the second place, although the desire to hold a worthy position in life was f deserving of respect, it ws.s wrong that success and the passing of examinations should be regarded as an end in themselves; Too Many Examinations However, a gradual change was being carried out, and the speaker believed that the university was on the upgrade. The members of the senate, being elderly men, naturally wished to avoid adverse criticism of their decisions and to see that" the change took place so slowly that no one would notice it. Accrediting was being substituted for matriculation, thus freeing the schools from an impersonal outside control and leaving them to a greater " extent masters of their own fate. A further reform that might bo effected was to cut out much of the examining that was done by the university. This could best be achieved by abolishing the system of paying teachers in the affiliated coljiges for examining on the basis of the amount of work thev did. Out of nearly £16,000 paid this year, about. £12.000 went to examiners resident in Ifr this sum were distributed each.year to all professors by way of addition to salary, in payment for work which was really part of a professor's ordinary duty, tne complexity and length of examinations would be .found marvellously to diminish and the result would | Ije equally good. One defect of a purely examining institution was that it had a terrible disposition to ignore the whole sociological aspect of science, but he was glad to say that there was a prospect that a research fellowship in social and industrial relations would be established in this country. Its value none would deny.