EXAMINATION SYSTEM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19376, 14 July 1937, Page 8

EXAMINATION SYSTEM

DRASTIC CRITICISM

' TRAINING OF TEACHERS N.Z. METHODS ASS All SAD (por Press Association.) AUCKLAND, last night. The value of examinations and rigid inspectorial surveillance was questioned, and the farcical inadequacy of the general and professional training given to teachers was stressed by Dr. William Boyd, head of the Department of Education at the Glasgow University, in an address at the New Education Fellowship Conference. He explained that up to a point examinations were helpful, but they had been badly overdone. The problem was to find some way of making use of Hie valuable aspects of examinations and of getting rid of their attendant evils. They could play quite an important part in the educational process and were a guarantee against slackness and of efficiency.

From the point of view of the public, their selective function was also useful, but there were reasons why errors entered into the examination method of measuring efficiency. "If a teacher has to think in terms of inspectors and examinations, lie will be afraid to experiment; while the second ill-effect lies in the tendency to establish wrong standards and methods of selection.” Dr. Boyd explained. A teache- would always beat the examiner, and the latter, faced with the difficulty of too many people passing, raised the standard and perpetuated the evil.

Paralysis of Initiative Composition papers had served to spoil languages, and the arithmetic taught in schools had become nothing more than juggling and manipulation, of no use to anyone except the examinees. The examination system brought about a paralysis of initiative in the case of both the teacher and the pupil, and from the point of view of the cultural and spiritual side of the school and the Education Department, was a soul-destroying entity. In New Zealand, the system of grading teachers was a sin against personality, and it offended his whole sense of professional dignity. Examinations should be confined to the mechanical elements of human intelligence, which were easily calculable, and Dr. Boyd advised teachers not to extend these methods to embrace spiritual activities, such as literature and art. They should be concerned with the minimum essentials, and he would suggest the superannuation of external examiners and inspectors, ns be was opposed to the intrusion of the outside standard. "The whole business of education inevitably comes back to the quality of the teaching profession,” Dr. Boyd asserted. “I suggest that you seek a much better training system, in order that our successors may be better educated than we ourselves. This training college system is mockery. Give your teachers a good general education to keep them alive with ideas, and alongside that provide a much better professional training. The problem comes back to this: Examinations do not matter very much, but teachers do, and the best guarantee to the community at large is a well-educated body of them in our schools,” .stated Dr. Boyd, who added that the grading system was answerable for a great deal of the present evil.