MATRICULATION EXAMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 35, 11 February 1944, Page 4

MATRICULATION EXAMS

FURTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR THOSE WHO FAILED. Although the new syllabus for school certificate subjects has not been announced, jt has been possible for secondary school teachers to concentrate on the cor? of subjects common to all courses such as English and arithmetic, while 'reign languages, algebra and geometry await further sorting out among academic students. Those taking commercial and manual courses are not likely to be affected to any extent by the changes, ft is assumed by many educationists that the new plan will have a scientific bias, in that the range of subjects under the heading of science will be enlarged. The university entrance examination required a pass in live subjects, a!I mathematics counting as one, and most candidates took six subjects. Now that accrediting for university entrance envisages a four-year course, pupils at the end of their third year will have as their goal the school certificate, requiring a pass in English and Jour other subjects (arithmetic and mathematics each counting as a whole paper). Thus, promoted fourth form pupils who have included Latin. French and the three mathematics subjects in their course find themselves able to drop one subject Some in the third-year forms are probably not aiming beyond the school certificate, but at the end of this year they will still have the chance, for the last time, of gaining university entrance on those papers. This opportunity has been made available because third-year pupils who were not quite up to university entrance standard in 1943 otherwise would have had to wait for two years to gain an accrediting pass, and because they have been prepared for a long time on the old prescription. This provision, however, does not apply to scholars who have obtained a full school certificate, but failed for university entrance. Those pupils are now studying for the purpose of getting an accrediting pass and the higher leaving certificate.