ACCREDITING SYSTEM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 78, Issue 7016, 7 February 1949, Page 5

ACCREDITING SYSTEM

TO BE INVESTIGATED DECISION OF SENATE Investigation of the accrediting system for university entrance is to be made by a special committee, by decision of the senate of the University of New Zealand. The senate discussed in committee confidential sections of the reports of the liaison officers attached to the university colleges. Figures quoted by the Victoria University College liaison officer, Mr R. Hogg, set out the numbers of students accredited and passed for university entrance, as follows:—l94s: Candidates, 650; accredited, 484 (74.5%); sat examinations, 166 (25.5%); passed, 46 (7.1%). 1946: Candidates, 919; accredited, 652 (70.9%); sat, 267 (29.1%); passed, 71 (7.7%). 1947: Candidates, 995; accredited, 697 (70%); sat, 298 (30%); passed, 75 (7.5%). Mr Hogg said he felt that if something approaching these percentages was achieved each year, the system was working satisfactorily and the standard of entrance was adequately safeguarded. The accredited students in the year under review improved their position relative to the non-accredited. It was only now that accredited pupils were coming to the university in sufficient numbers to allow some judgment to be made upon the system. It was clear that in the future the accredited students would outnumber those qualified by examination. For example in 1948,‘at Victoria University College, of the newly-enrolled students who came direct from post-primary schools, 287 had been accredited and 86 gained entrance by examination. In examination of similar figures at the Auckland University College, the Auckland liaison officer, Mr J. Thompson, said the conclusion might be reached that in the Auckland university district accrediting had so far had no noticeable effect on the standard of performance in the first year at the university. To his mind, however, the most striking feature of the 1947 degree results was the fact that no improvement was shown in the percentage of total failures in their first year of students proceeding directly from secondary schools to the university. A question one could not help asking was this: Must 30% of such students gain no passes in their first year? Apart from unavoidable causes, the main reason for failures in the first year appeared to be low academic qualifications, together with immaturity of outlook, taking too many units, and wrong choice of first-year subjects. The Canterbury University College liaison officer, Mr G. S. Troup, said that in the year under review the students who had come to university colleges with accrediting status in the Canterbury district did not quite succeed in equalling the performance of their contemporaries who gained their entrance by examination.