THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 103, 18 May 1937, Page 6

THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM

Soaxe direct criticism of examinations as part o£ the Education system are given by Dr. Cyril Norwood, president of St. J ohn 's Uollege Oxford, who will be one of the lepturere at the New Education Conference to be held in Wellington in July. He is the author of eeveral books on education. In one of these he says; — ''Up tp the age of fifteen a child shouid not be examined save by his or her teachers — this in ihe interests of sound teaching; one does not pull up the tender plant to examine its root fonnation, Thereafter there shouid be an examination system for the intellectuals, by which I mean, those who are fit for Universities, professions, and the higher posts of jndustry, jmanufaeture and commerce. But all the =wit of man ;(and womsan) shouid be used to see that this examination system does not dominate the natural progress nor cramp the vaTiety of the work, nor render impossible that broad general culture which it is the business of secondaiy schools to imparfc. "For the mass, the great bulk of primary and post-primary children, there shouid be no examinatioji, but a long period of testing and experiment to find the education which for the child of limited ability is the best preparation for lifie. For the examination system is no friend to whom one can trust in blind confidence; from its first guise as a servant, it may at any moment reveal itself as a hard and unsympathetic master; and it is far the most dangerons of the mechanical instruments which are employed in the service of education."