“ I AM OPPOSED TO ACCREDITING.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18787, 17 June 1929, Page 13

“ I AM OPPOSED TO ACCREDITING.”

HEADMASTER OF SYDNEY GRAMMAR SCHOOL TELLS WHY. (Special to the “Star.”) AUCKLAND, June 16. The system of accrediting and its working in Australia are discussed in a statement by Mr H. S. Dettman, head master of the Sydney Grammar School, and formerly Professor of Classics in Auckland University College. “ I cannot speak with authority,” he said, 44 of the New Zealand proposals,, because I do not know what they are. In general I am opposed to accrediting. Years ago, when I was a member of the old New Zealand University Senate, I served on a committee set up to report on this question, and was commissioned to make inquiries into the working of the accrediting plan in New South Wales. I found that except to some extent on paper it did not exist. Now, after six years’ experience as head master of the greatest of Sydney schools, I know that there is little demand for it among New South Wales teachers. Although we find the problem of external public examinations a difficult and pressing one, we do pot seek a solution in this direction. With us in theory the judgment of the school is taken into account in the case of each individual candidate. The school is required to furnish a written numerical estimate of the value of each pupil in each subject, and I find that it corresponds fairly accurately with the final results. In the case of a big school these prejudgments may be of some relative value, and 1 am assured that they are carefully weighed by the examiners in cases that are on the border line. I confess that 1 do not see how even this small measure of accrediting can be very profitably employed. With many schools it can have no value whatever. Examiners told me of a recent case in the subject of French, where none of them could give 20 per cent to a candidate whom the school estimated as worth 93. 44 In Victoria I understand there is an elaborate method ot Accrediting, accepted by fewer than one school in ten. I am told further that the masters of even these few schools dislike the system. “ I am not greatly troubled by the fear that if a head master could send pupils on to the University mordfr or less as he chose the pressure put upon him by the parents of the duller boys would be intolerable, but I know that this consideration largely influenced a most capable and experienced school master, the late Mr J. W. Tibbs, in his uncompromising hostility to anv; scheme of accrediting. As examiner in Latin for the New Zealand University entrance scholarships, I found that some schools had inadequate standards. I remember that of a bunch of about twenty candidates from one centre offering Latin at this higher matriculation stage, not one gained more than 15 per cent. That is, not one should have been presented. Nor do I believe that in practice a certificate once granted to a school to accredit its pupils would readily be revoked.

“ I am told that outside Auckland opinion, both University and school, favours the change. As I have said T cannot criticise the proposals because T know nothing of their details. The word ‘accrediting’ covers a multitude, but what&veY the scheme is I start prejudiced against it. Lacking exact knowledge of what is intended I cannot briefly set out my objections, although T have soxne special understanding of the interest of both schools and University. It might be in the interests of the country to limit the numbers and improve the calibre of those attempting a University course. It might be kinder to the incompetent to make the initial barrier higher and more rigid, but these are other questions and rather perplexing ones.”