EXAMS SHOULD BE ABOLISHED SAYS EDUCATIONIST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 18, 3 April 1950, Page 5

EXAMS SHOULD BE ABOLISHED SAYS EDUCATIONIST

A keen advocate of the abolition of the public examination system as' it is known at present is Mrs W. McNamara, a well known Australian educationist, who is at present visiting New Zealand with her husband.

Mrs McNamara has formed her conclusion after 16 years’ teaching in the city and country high schools of New South Wales. “Gruelling public examinations through secondary schools and university are on unnecessary strain for young people,” said Mrs McNamara. Better results, she said, could be obtained by other systems -of testing, through a re-arrangement of the curriculum and by offering other incentives to students to work. Important Aims

Other most important aims for the future are, firstly, greater financial grants for education to ensure more and better trained teachers, and consequently less regimentation ox students in large classes as at present, and, secondly, a longer training period for teachers so that due time and study might be given to mental hygiene as well as scholastic subjects.

The present two to three years’ preparation for teaching was, Mrs McNamara considered, quite inadequate particularly to prepare young teachers for co-education, which in her experience woi'ked best and was the best training for children’s future lives.

The idea of parent education was only slowly being accepted, she said. It had the support of most mothers, who everywhere were anxious to learn more about preventive psychological problems in their children, but fathers were not so keen. Too many were inclined to regard the care of children as purely a wopran’s job.