THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 6

THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM. (Fkoji Our Own Correspondent.) . LONDON, January 9 the influence of examination on education was discussed at a joint conference in the great hall of the university, under the chairmanship of Sir John Gilbert.

Professor H. J. Fleure (president of the Association of University Teachers) suggested that teachers and examiners might get together in an effort to make the examination system work better. Whether examinations were satisfictcry or not. they would continue for a number of years because they were far from a uniform scheme that would supersede them. In marking papers greater attention should be given to evidences of intelligence. It would be a step forward if the link could be ended between the first public examination and nominal university entrance. Efforts should be made towards the substitution of certification by the school for certification by a wholly external examining body. The second public examination, taken at 18 or 19, was a better thing than the first, often at 15, for the minds and bodies of the pupils had, at 18. passed through certain phases, and were more formed. Miss M. D. Brock, headmistress, Mary Datchelor School, Camberwell, expressed the view that the physical strain of an external examination on an adolescent girl was greater than on a boy of the same age. For that reason it had been decided that girls should be encouraged to take the first public examination a year later than boys. It was very undesirable that slight failure in one part of an examination should involve failure in the wh< le, irrespective of the school record in tl at subject and of excellence of perforraai.ee in other subjects. A girl should be given a chance to make up on the roundabouts what she lost on the swings. Examinations had good points. They necessitated exact knowledge; they tested the power of the child to deal with knowledge and apply it to the matter in hand, the power to read a question, to obey instructions, to work to time, and. last but not least, to keep one’s head.

GREATER CO-OPERATION. The influence of the first external examination at present upon girls’ schools was definitely bad, as it was not sufficiently adjusted to their schools and their curriculum. The second external examination was less harmful. The real crux was in the scholarship and entrance examinations to universities owing to the keen competition. She protested against the use of examination results for invidious comparison between schools. Mr E. R. Thomas, headmaster of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, said that they could not do without examinations, and they did not wish to do without them, but they asked that there should be an improvement in tbe method of examinations as at present conducted. There should be a greater cegree of co-operation between representatives of the schools and the examinees. Mr A. Saywell, president of the National Association of Head Teaencrs, thought that external examinations had a depressing effect upon children, and tended to develop the inferiority complex.