UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19423, 7 September 1937, Page 5

UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE

POSSIBLE ACCREDITING BREAK IN SCHOOL YEAR ATTITUDE OF TEACHERS (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. With the commencement of the last term of the school year, this week thousands o£ secondary school pupils throughout the Dominion are returning to their studies a little uncertain as to the effect which the interrupted school year will have on the university entrance examination. It was stated earlier in the year that in view of the interruption o! studies through the infantile pawjy** epidemic, the executive committee- of the University of New Zealand senate Bad directed the vice-chancellor to make such arrangements .with the examiners and the results committee as would P«vent, as far as might be possible, an injustice to candidates presenting themselves this year No further official announcement has been made and there is a certain amount of speculation among both pupils and teachers as to what special arrangements will be; made. One Auckland schoolmaster stated yesterday that the statement made earlier in the year was vague and indefinite and the teachers did not know where they were in the matter. It was felt by some, he added, that the authorities would meet the situation by allowing the same percentage of candidates to pass as in previous years It was generally understood among teachers that there was always a mechanical scaling up or down and that the same percentage of passes in each subject was provided for each year. "For some years there have been educational authorities who have advocated the abolition of the examination for entrance to the university in favour of an accrediting system. I think the accrediting system will come eventually," said the Auckland schoolmaster yesterday, "but I think we would have known long before this if it were intended to introd iccsuch a system this year. "I think that a majority of teachers would approve of an accrediting system as long as there was a safeguard of examination for those not accredited." He added that he considered it improbable that the examination this year would be made easier on account of the interruption to the studies caused by the infantile paralysis epidemic.