THE SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10730, 19 February 1897, Page 3

THE SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATIONS.

I The qnestion of the scholarship regulations , j was brought up at the meeting of the Educa- [ tion Board on Wednesday by ] The Chairman (Mr Cohen), who said that an ■ article had appeared in the Daily Times out the ! previous Saturday calling attention to what were thought to be serious defects in the junior ! scholarship regulations. As a great deal oE | misapprehension would have been created by it ;he haa called the attention of the inspectors to i it and had invited an expreasiou of their opinions, and they had replied as follows :— f , Memo, to Chairman Otago Education Board. t JW? wh><* yo« refer in your memo, of 'f.f" obviously based on the assump. turn that the senior scholarships are intended to be awarded to children that have a good knowledge of live-sixths of the free course of insfruc. tion provided by the Government-that is to say, to the beat of the I'if th Standard pupils. On this assumption double provision is made -for instruction in the work prescribed for Standard Vl-provision by the department of education at the rate of £1! 15* per head and ' provision by the board at from £15 to £35 per head. Ihe department has provided for the free instruction of all children up to a certain levelthe work prescribed for Standard VI; and the board has by its scholarship schem ß provided for •lie tree instructios of clever children whom it vfiH pay the nation to carry beyond this point. I Ims is clearly what the department intended to provide for by its grants for scholarships. It certainly did not intend this money to be spent on children that had done only a portion of the work for which it had made otherand ample provision The boards junior scholarship syllabus has, therefore, been made to cover the pulilic school course of instruction. We make no remark cm the nrescription of one age for the children of large and another for those ot small schools, but we would observe that the average age of Standard VI is no criterion of tho age at which clever children (the children for whom the board casts its net) pass this standard Jjast year, for example, over EO of the children that passed it in the large schools were, awarding to the ages given in the school examination schediilts, under JIJ at the time of the scholarship examination. In our opinion the whole of the free course provided by the department should bo covered by the junior scholarship syllabus ; but we see no objection to raising the prescribed examination ages for the scholarships. P. Goyen "1 T , February IG, 1807. (p Wha.fi in effect the inspectors pointed out was that the school scheme really nimod at taking the child over the entire public school course and at not limiting it to the i'ifth Standard. There was si letter thers from Dr Stenhouae, who, evidently taking the article for his text, wrote :— ~ Stuart street, February 10, 1597. ihe Chairman Otago Education Board. on-,—Havilij; gutherei! from a jireas paragraph that the board have seen iit to raise the standard ot examination for a junior scholarship, especially

In arithmetic and history, and deeming this un necessary as well as mischievous, I ventur P ?n address you on tke subject, in the hope that the board will revert to the old regulations. Many of the children who compete are only 12 yearn old ol a few weeks over that age, and they are nit'ted against others who, by the accident of bfrthare close upon 13, and with others who, frotn their "resi dence in the country, are close upoii 14 Now Lfth metip is a subject which in its higher benches" only passed the Fifth Standard and by £ them to do Sixth Standard arithmeticyou a* the board.profess to hold cramminfin a&r fnce fore be rendered as little prominent aTcosfibk * ?„' date™- tZ t n n de ntn'' m7 et! 10 real »««t.ofSndl! allow archi d'ren'?^ tO/, UStrUOt *^S» to i.il«, Chau-snan continuing, said if the board Staadard the chddren going out of the primary schools would be worse handicapped in th» secondary schools than they now wen: What the school system was designed for was to come £££? ffiffi" t0 th 9 limit of fa^K 4s™sa2r iderafa eommi?^" -^ the aPP^'ntmenb of a S tee t.°, Co°Bl(ler c question, and moved sisfclnn^ ™fh I ? teferred *° a committee consishng; of the chairman and Mr P. B. Fraaer carried HSAY aeoondedth« which was