PROFICIENCY EXAMINATIONS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17409, 6 November 1930, Page 12

PROFICIENCY EXAMINATIONS

(To tho Editor of the Herald.) Sir,—Kindly allow me to make a few comments upon a paragraph which appeared in last Monday's issue. this paragraph refers to the abandoned prolieiencv survey. In the first place the comments bv ‘“an Auckland teacher’’ are erroneous as departmental officers always set the papers in English- and arithmetic. The essentials of the proposed! survey were that all pupils were to sit; in other words to put all the children through tho same mill ..that only tho country children have to go through at present. Every child attending a. sole charge school is at a disadvantage in the proficiency test as the examination has to

bo' conducted solely by a written test, which in this district is forwarded to Napier for marking.. • The town child, on t.he other hand, is “accredited” ; ns many as 60 per cent, being put through in this manner in the large town schools.-, 1 submit that the Minister’s action in interfering with departmental experts, men who have studied education for years, is a crying shame and the sooner lay interference on the part of Ministers with expert advice, is stopped, the less costly and more efficient will the conduct of some Government departments bd.-ome. At any rate, I do not think that the country teachers raised any objection to the survey and as there are only town teachers left, i leave your readers to guess why they objected. I am, yours, etc., , A COUNTRY TEACHER.