EDUCATION CHANGE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 372, 14 March 1932, Page 7

EDUCATION CHANGE.

Public Service Examination Abandoned. MINISTER'S ANNOUNCEMENT. (Special to the “Star.”) WELLINGTON, March 14. Changes in the secondary education system including the abandonment of the public service examination and the substitution of one of matriculation standard, but with a wider range of subjects, were announced by the Hon R. Masters to-day. The Minister said that the Department for some time had had under consideration the desirability of making certain changes in the examinations taken by pupils in the post-primary schools. At present, pupils on completing their junior free place course were awarded senior free places if recommended by the principal of the school and approved by the inspector. Should candidates fail to be accredited, they must take the department’s examination for intermediate certificates, the holder of which was entitled to a senior free place. The Minister said he thought it desirable to test the operation of the accrediting system just as had been done last year in the award of proficiency certificates and to require all candidates for senior free places to sit this year at the examination for intermediate certificates. This did not mean that the accrediting system was to be entirely abandoned. He merely desired it to be tested for the sake both of the pupils themselves and of the teachers, whose standard of judgment might gradually vary from year to year, becoming either too high or too low. A Further Change. A further change would be the abandoning of the present public service entrance examination, a pass in which was no longer of high enough standard for entrance to the public service. For some time more than sufficient applicants had been offering with a university matriculation pass. The Public Service Commissioner agreed that the present public service entrance examination should be discontinued and there should be substituted an examination of the standard required for university .entrance, but with a wider range of subjects to meet the requirements of different branches of the service and to fit in with technical school a£ well as with secondary school courses. Succesful candidates at this examination would be arranged in order of merit and thus applicants for positions in the public service or with private employers would have a definite standard of attainment to offer in support of their applications. The examination should be particularly helpful to those employers who desired to give preference to applicants with special qualifications which would be revealed by the subjects which the applicant had passed in at the examination referred to. As the examination would generally be taken by pupils at the end or towards the end of their postprimary course pass, the certificate could be called, as in Great Britain, “ the school certificate.” It would correspond in standard to the present lower leaving certificate, which had proved of little service and which would therefore be abandoned. Standard not Affected. The present standard required for the higher leaving certificate would not be affected, as a pass in either the University entrance examination or the school certificate examination would be considered a sufficient prerequisite qualification. At present, a large number of pupils left the post-primary schools without any definite certificate of attainment. i Under the new system, qualified pupils would receive an intermediate certificate usually at the end of their second year and the school certificate at the end of their secondary course. The subjects for the school certificate examination would be chosen and the prescriptions so framed that the examination might be taken by technical school pupils as well as by secondary school pupils. This should have the effect of stimulating interest in technical school courses which, heretofore, had not in general enabled candidates to qualify for the lower or higher leaving certificates.