EXAMINATIONS CONDEMNED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18513, 25 March 1922, Page 10

EXAMINATIONS CONDEMNED

MEDICAL OPINION IN AUSTRALIA. (Fbou Ock Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 16. An attack on what it describes as the “examination craze” lias been launched by the Australian Medical Journal, the official organ of the profession. It points cut that the examination wan introduced ; nto the education system as a ready means of determining the degree of knowledge possessed by a candidate. Originally these teste were limited to those who sought admission to official positions. The expedient or requiring students to write answers to a series of printed questions in a specified time extended as the scope of science and philogy became enlarged. Prizes were given to the boys or girls who exhibited an unusual ability in reply to Questions either in a written or in a spoken examination. The system gradually insinuated itself into the education system so firmly that the main object of education became tempered by the need to prepare for these recurring stock-takings. “At school and in the university, says the Journal, “the system has grown into a craze. The young are required to prepare themselves for a long series of exams., not for the acquisition of knowledge, nor for the sharpening of the spirit of inquiry and criticism. Tno school boy or_ girl is being trained to-day to pass examinations by a feverish but superficial study of a particular subject. Skill is required in the display of intelligence : the crammed knowledge does not and cannot find a permanent hold in the mind of the examinee. Moreover, the most useful factor in school education—tne learning how to learn—is lost. Children learn only how to face an examination paper and the examiner. The same applies to a great extent to our universities. An artificial value is placed on the so-called brilliant student, who in reality has missed his or her intellectual gifts in the process of cramming. The result of an examination cannot be taken as the measure of intellectual ability and of acquired knowledge. The element of chance enters largely, because, unless the teachers indicate openly or covertly the questions to bo asked, the result may depond on the recent reading of the candidate. The old apprenticeship was a better system, for it guaranteed to the student individual teaching, and repeated correction until skill and knowledge were acquired. ' Our medical schools are bn the threshold of a revolution. Many of the old methods have outlived their usefulness The increasing number of subjects to be mastered, the ever-changing dogma, the entire alteration of the outlook of the function of the medical practitioner in his relations to the, public have indicated within recent times that the reform is due. The reactionary spirit of many of the leaders of medical education will not avail to postpone the change for long.