A FETISH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19946, 2 November 1934, Page 8

A FETISH

THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM

NEW POLICY ADVOCATED

By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, November 1

The present system of national education in New Zealand was criticised by Mr A. M. Seaman, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand, in an address at the annual conference of Chambers today.

Mr Seaman said that the training given young people in New Zealand primary and secondary schools was faulty in that the examination system had become too much of a fetish and had given a deadening effect to teaching, and because of the tendency to specialise on “useful” subjects at the expense of training on general lines which would allow original thought and initiative.

Mr Seaman suggested that universal free education should finish at the primary school stage, that a generous system of scholarships should replace the present free place system, and that a similar policy should be adopted for entrance to the University and that senseless competition among educational institutions should be eliminated. It was absurd, he argued, that secondary schools should attempt technical training, and that technical schools should have academic classes. A modification of the system, he argued, would benefit the community and relieve the public purse.