SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25457, 11 February 1944, Page 2

SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

NEW TOKEN OF EFFICIENCY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 10. “ The publication of the report of the committee has been awaited with great interest,” said the Minister of Education, Mr H. G. F. Mason, to-night. " The committee was asked to advise the Government upon changes in the post-primary curriculum in view of the introduction of accrediting for entrance to the university. The hope was-held that the report would be a significant event in the history of education in New Zealand, and that it would make an important contribution to the general educational theory. I think it will be generally agreed that the publication of the report has justified these high hopes. “ The committee was asked to make recommendations regarding the choice and contents of subjects for the school certificate examination,” Mr Mason said

“ This examination assumes a new importance now that the matriculation examination is confined to those pupils who are definitely proceeding to higher education at the university. The school certificate becomes the more general token that a boy or girl has satisfactorily completed a post-primary course, and it will gain in the minds of parents and employers the importance once vested in the matriculation examination. “ In adolescence,” the Minister said. “ a youth seeks to develop his own special abilities and vocational ambitions, but adolescence is above all the time at which are developed those ideals which embody the social inheritance and determine the character of a nation. All feelings which unite us and our fellow man, and constitute the very essence of social life, that enable corporate bodies and societies of every description to flourish, have either their origin or their most vigorous development at that period of life. Upon the full unfoldment of the nature of our youth at that time depends the survival of all our social inheritance and its transmission and enrichment for the future of our nation and for its contribution to the world's wellbeing. “ The committee in compiling its report has borne these aims fully in mind, and they are reflected in the basic recommendation which divides the curriculum into two parts—the core cf studies and activities to be taken by all pupils, and the number {j of optional subjects from which a choice may be made to suit the individual needs. This recommendation gives to the teacher—upon whom all depends—the means of basing his teaching on the real needs of his pupils. “ The problem of relating the work of the schools organically to the life of the

' community, especially at the adolescent stage, is a world-wide one, and there can be no doubt that this report will be read both in New Zealand and overseas with as deep interest as were the Spens and l Norwood reports on post-primary education in England. The thanks of the Government are due to the (chairman, ! Mr W. Thomas, and to the members of the committee for the thorough and | efficient way in which they sifted and collated the evidence submitted to them Iby a large number of individuals and j organisations.”