“WASTE OF TIME"

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11522, 18 May 1923, Page 7

“WASTE OF TIME"

THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM MU CRESSAVELL OX EXISTIXG CONDITIONS. METHOD AND RESULT. ( *The ■minds of many thoughtful teachers the wide world over arc full of t»he divine di>comcmstated Mr T. R. Creeswell, M.A, principal of Wellington Boys’ College and president of the Secondary Schools’ Association, at the annual meeting of that body yesterday EXPENDITURE AND RESULT. The periodical educational audit, he said, still disclosed an alarming preponderance of expenditure, both of money and of effort, over reasonable or even calculable result. During the last few years four committees of educational experts had been engaged in England collecting evidence and training reports on the teaching oi English, of classics, of modern languages, and of science. Each committee, as might be expected, in it? report has demanded more time for its own subject group. But diverse as were the conclusions of the various committees, there was one point upon which they were unanimous, and this was in that not one of them expressed unqualified approval of the present system. The classical committee recognised that certain types of subjects encouraged cramming, while the science committee stated that the methods of examination needed careful and skilful revision, for they still relied upon stereotyped devices. “Examinations, it said, “were often conducted by persons of inferior intelligence and attainments, or by others who, though able and learned, regarded them as a kind of drudgery’.” “CULTURE IS INDIVIDUAL.” There was a danger that a true instinct for humanism might be smothered by the demand for a definite measurable result. He ouoted Hartog, who had held that “culture was as individual a thing as conscience; it may be killed, but it cannot bo caught by examination,” The control of the syllabus should not be left to the examining body. It was clear that a great body of educational opinion in England was hostile to examinations. In New Zealand he held that examinations caused waste of time estimated at 5 per cent, of the school year; they imposed too definite a curriculum upon schools; they were notoriously unreliable as tests of the entrants; happiness was the test of a good education, and the system did not make for that; it acted also as a deterrent upon experiment and innovation They should he both a test and a stimulus'; but at best, what did examinations test and what did they stimulate? The least worthy side of the teachers’ work. MEMORY QUESTIONS. He quoted various authorities who had' reached the conclusion that about 75 or 76 per cent, of the examination questions set were memory questions. An analysis of matriculation papers which he himself had made gave about 60 per cent. He firmly believed that reform of our examination system was the greatest and most practical reform in sight. When he attended educational meetings and heard their pettv resolutions he felt something of a fellow feeling for the old Cato sitting firm and implacable in the Roman Senate, and as each resolution was voted on, muttering in his beard: “Delenda est Car;hago.”