SURVEY TO BE MADE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 68, 17 September 1930, Page 12

SURVEY TO BE MADE

PROFICIENCY EXAMINATION

BOARD'S ASSISTANCE

A proficiency examination survey is to be carried out by the Education Department this year, and details were set out hi the following circular received by the Wellington Education Board this morning from the Director of Education (Mr. T. B. Strong).

"As you are doubtless ;iware, various methods have, with the 'approval of the Department, been adopted by the inspectors in determining the award of proficiency and competency certificates. You are also aware that the percentage of passes varies at times very considerably between one district and another. The Department, therefore, proposes to make a survey of the whole position, and to this end will arrange for a synchronous examination of the candidates to be held on the same dates—2oth and 24th November next —and under the same conditions for tho whole Dominion. The teachers will, as usual, furnish their estimates of tho candidates' attainments in the examination subjects, and will independently of these estimates give assistance in marking the tests set lat the synchronous examination. They will not be asked to mark all subjects, and all the murks will be assessed or reassessed, as the case may be, by the inspectors themselves, who will report to the Department whether the teachers' marking appears to bo on. the whole-re-liable or not. Tho inspectors will bo asked to make as full notes as possible of the attainments of the candidates as evidenced at the time of their own inspection, visit, and will, as has always been the practice, take into consideration tho teachers' recorded estimate of each candidate's qualifications. Every care must, of course, be taken to provide adequate supervision of the candidates when under examination. "The co-operation of the Education Board is desired in making the survey. Full instructions will be issued to the inspectors, but as there will be a considerable amount of clerical work involved in the scheme, the assistance of the board's staff will bo appreciated in order that the project may bo carried to a successful issue. Full details regarding the scheme will presently be sent to the board and to the inspectors. The proposal will involve tho arrange? ment by the board for assistant supervisors in the schools, the distribution of schedules and test papers to the schools, the receipt of the worked papers and the -usual clerical work in recording the marks and dispatching tho results and certificates to the schools concerned." The Department also asked tho board to supply the Department with the number "of schools where there were proficiency candidates, and also with the number of candidates to be presented. The board agreed to co-operate with the Department in every way.