CRAMMING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20151, 21 May 1928, Page 8

CRAMMING

EXAMINATION SYSTEM THE EFFECT ON THE RISING GENERATION. The position examinations occupied * in the life of the schoolbov, and the indirect effect they had on'the national life, were referred to by Mr A. IV. Short, B.A.j of Auckland, at the Secondary Schools Assistants’ Confer- i ence recently. Mr Short binmed the public to a large extent for the cramming that i took place for examinations, because 1 it judged a school largely on i: ? I examination results. Accrediting was spoken of for matriculation. How I much value would be attached to the certificate denoting that the pupil was considered fit to be granted matriculation without examination? The public needed educating up to such a -y-iem. There were, however, a lower leaving certificate and a high / h aving certificate already in us.. 11. lid not think those certificates carried their full weight as such, simply because they did not denote a pa>s in an examination. A bank manager of some repute refused employment to q boy who had been granted a free place on recommendation, but accepted one who had not been recommended, but who had managed to scrape through the examination afterwards. He did not consider that the examination system was wholly to be condemned, but he thought the type of questions set was usually along tne wrong lines. The paper demanded committing to memory what others had written, and reproducing “’c facts on paper in the examination room. That constituted a never-ceasing tax on the memory, often at the expense of the philosophy of the subject. There was too much inducement to acquire second-hand information, and not enough training in applying the principles underlying the things 1 *rn-, with the result that when difficulties i arose it was too often a question of ; what a book of reference said, not J what we ourselves thought. It was frequently said that a nation’s prosperity depended upon the I extent of industrial peace that exist- I ed inside its borders. We had in the i universities highly-trained teachers in ' economics, men who, if book learning I counted for anything, ought to know ‘ all theories to be known about their i subject. But what happened when in dustrial troubles arose? Did we see ; a professor presiding over the Com- ! mission that was set up? It was only ; lately that his opinion had been sought at all. Mr Short concluded: "Is there not I a danger that we teachers, the tutors : of the rising generation, are liable -o . err in the same direction? Shall ee ■ not train a nation chock full of book- ; learning, but robbed of its initiative? ‘ If this is so. it is doubtful whether j under such circumstances we are going ' to produce the men who will, in the 1 future, keep us in the front rank r.f i the nations in what has become an ■ ever-increasing struggle for world I supremacy. ’ ’ I