UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 69, 23 March 1933, Page 10

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

(To the Editor.)'

Sir,—miie letter which appeared in your paper of March 9 above the nom-de-plume "Graduate," and dealing with the above subject, and also the statement made by the Governor-General, was full of interest to many of your readers, but I feel sure there are others who will agree the letter could have,gone very much further and included the necessity to overhaul the university examination system. In the last paragraph of the letter under review the statement appears, "the important person in a university from the community's point of view is not the professor but the student." It could also be added that the objective of the university should be the soundest mental equipment of students who earn degrees through the university. This suggests that tho course of lectures and the general education of the students in the most practical mariner possible should be the objective of the .system, a:>l the year's work at tho university in lectures, etc., should form the background from which examination papers are built up. 'It is an unfortunate fact for students, and also for those who by financial and other assistanco make it possible for students to continue their work- at the university, that tho methods of examining do not provide for iho above plan. There are evidences showing that the student who is at work

getting practical knowledge in the profession which he .intends to follow, and incidentally earning his daily bread, is at a distinct disadvantage in comparison with the student who has means at his disposal enabling him to spend what time he may wish to on study and lectures. Obviously the student who is getting practical knowledge at the same time will become much more efficient in his profession, and is, therefore,. of greater value in the community, but it is not apparent that the university takes this aspect of the matter into account in a practical manner.

Information before me shows that a student at work able to Ret a very strong passim'one subj"ect at the New Zealand University examinations, and failed bythree or four marks in another subject, is not entitled to claim any result for his year's work, and the single subject is not <:redited to him. On the other hand another student who loafs, for three years, and on two occasions has failures, iv the third year manages to get' a bare pass in two subjects, and in the recount is given a third subject, just .squeezes through on all three. Surely from the point of view ot, efficiency and usefulness it is far better tuat the student first referred to should "c credited with a strong pass in one subject only for each of the; three years. He is much more likely to be a.useful man than, the student who merely squeezes through the-three subjects at the end of ture<> years of indifferent, if not unsatisfactory work, in the university classes as a student. . ," _

Again there is something wrong with the system employed- at the Victoria University which makes it possible that a student at the !house examinations cani make an average approximating 80 per cent., and yet at the New Zealand "University examinations finds himself precluded from obtaining any result for a good year's work at the university, because in the hist place the system compels that he should pass in, two Subjects, when the main reason why better results are not achieved being ,the discrepancy between the lectures, and course taught at the university, and questions set for the degree examinations. There is an element of unfairness m the fact that students should be left to infer from the lectures given that they would be examined on that work. It is quite clear that they are examined on that work at the Victoria University but it is clear that in degree subjects they are not examined on that work ■if the New Zealand University papers are to be taken as an indication. I know I am not alone in the opinion that it is time those responsible for the conduct ot the university and degree examinations, and the training of the students, should evolve something more practical than the system at present in vogue, which gives the student who scrapes through on two subjects a better position than the student at work all day who has a very strong pass m one. All agree it is necessary high standards should be maintained in the university, but it does not appear that the present examination methods and pol-. icy can encourage the efficiency and usefulness which the community values and requires.—l am, etc., • ',-' ' S.H.G.