MATRICULATION

Southland Times, Issue 22216, 8 January 1934, Page 2

MATRICULATION

FIVE YEARS’ COURSE.

TASMANIAN SYSTEM PRAISED.

Tasmanian high school students take five years over their matriculation course, and it is the opinion of Dr C. Malthus, the recently-appointed professor of modern languages at Canterbury College, that a higher standard of scholarship is required of examinees in Tasmania than in New Zealand. Dr Malthus, in an interview at Christchurch, said that there was a tendency in this country to rate the matriculation examination altogether too cheaply. Matriculation did not stand for anything worth while in New Zealand. The Tasmanian system was much superior. A five-year course at the high school generally allowed a promising student to attain a thorough grounding before he went on to the university. The New Zealand system, whereby boys and girls could matriculate at the end of a three years’ course, sometimes encouraged them to loaf during the postmatriculation year. In any case, the knowledge that there was no imperative need to work hard did not act as an incentive to study. Tasmanian students who did not desire to spend five years at a secondary school could sit an intermediate examination at the end of three years, success in which was generally sufficient to secure them positions in business firms. Approximately 25 per cent, of those boys and girls who proceeded to secondary schools in Tasmania completed the five years. Primary education in Tasmania was. if anything, inferior to that in New Zealand, continued Dr Malthus. The State system was not so well established as it was in this country, having been launched no earliei- than 1900. Outside routine subjects there was comparatively little provision for instruction in the arts and, in some cases, there was little opportunity for children to pay much attention to games and physical development. Orchestras and art schools were rare and quite often the smaller schools were poorly provided with playing equipment and grounds. As in New Zealand—perhaps to a greater degree—examinations were over-emphasized.

Primary school pupils passed on to the high school by means of a scholarship system. High school accommodation and finances were limited and. tftough the working of a reasonably exclusive competitive examination, the majority of the weaker students were weeded out. The percentage of passes, however, was not rigid; it depended on the number of vacancies in the high schools.