UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26770, 13 May 1948, Page 6

UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

FAULTS OF ACCREDITING NEW SYSTEM URGED A remit urging some other means of selecting candidates for entrance to the University “ since it is now evident that the policy of accrediting is not achieving the objects for which it was introduced ” will be considered by the annual conference of the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Association at Dunedin to-morrow. Introducing the remit to the conference yesterday, Miss R. L Gardner, headmistress of the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, contended that schools should either revert to the old system or seek some new method for the future. , ’ , Miss Gardner pointed out that she was not attacking the theory of accrediting, and she admitted, that the system might work in the large and very small schools. One object of the accrediting was to free the Sixth Form pupils of examination syllabuses, but in the average-size school where the master had in the one form some who had been accredited and others were to sit the examination, he was unable to make a beginning with Sixth Form work. ~ , , Rather than raising the standard of the requisite qualifications for entrance to University, accrediting had lowered and would continue to lower the standard. Miss Gardner contended. It was not fair that the standard prescribed was not uniform in all schools. The accrediting condition that the candidate should be “fit to undertake university studies ” was not always interpreted that the candidate was “ready to enter University.” Apart from the embarrassment of the differing standards of accrediting. Miss Gardner continued, the system freed from sitting examinations many pupils who would benefit by the experience, particularly if their next few years of study would mean sitting many examinations Meanwhile, the conscientious worker who was the “border-line” pupil was forced to sit the examination to a lesser advantage. Miss A R. Allum. headmistress of the New Plvmouth Girls’ High School, seconding the motion, said that she would admit that none of the girls accredited in her school for Universitv entrance last year were at that tims> suitable for admission. Parents still regard the examination, not as a universitv examination, but as the old ‘ mntric ’,” she said. It was regarded as just another school examination with which went, additional money and opportunities when the pupil entered employment. Accrediting was not doing what it set out to do, and was in fact a great imposition on the schools.