TRACING PROGRESS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 126, 18 August 1927, Page 11

TRACING PROGRESS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

TABULATED CARDS DEPARTMENTS METHODS A featu?'e of the times is ■ the gathering of statistical information and the tabulation of results. In this respect the Education Department is not lagging behind, for there is being put into operation forthwith a new scheme of tabulating every child's progress ivhilst at school. Briefly, the Education Department is adopting a scheme, says the “Evening Post,” Wellington, whereby the whole primary and secondary school progress of every child in the Dominion will be recorded on one side of a card, about eight inches by five, while the other side of the card will contain particulars of the child’s health and the results of periodical medical examinations. With that attention to small things that marks all regulations, complete machinery is provided so that the card will follow the pupil from school to school, and details are even given for the making by teachers or children, of suitable receptacles for holding the cards. The objective of the system is that the evidence provided will firstly enable the parent and teacher to guide the pupil in the selection of a secondary course, and lastly, will assist in the selection of a congenial occupation. A copy of the card, with the medical report omitted, is to be sent by hand to the parent when the pupil has finally left school, and, in special instances where the medical officer thinks it advisable, he may himself arrange to forward such information as it is considered the parent should have. When a pupil’s education is completed the cards will go into the archives of the Education department in Wellington. This innovation will involve the printing of about a quarter of a million cards, or, if a duplicate is to be sent to the parents, considerably more than this number. Relegated to oblivion will be the present uninformative certificates of transfer given to pupils going from one school to another and the present medical card system. To inaugurate this new card system will certainly involve an increase in clerical work in the schools, but this will only be at the commencement of the scheme: once each pupil has his or her card there will be very little work entailed in keeping it up-to-date, except when the card is mislaid. COLDLY STATISTICAL Teachers at present have had but little time to consider this new' card system; it has been sprung upon them rather suddenly and without their opinion on the subject being consulted. The general view seems to be that the innovation may be a good one, provided tangible results are seen from the change. Several, however, are of the opinion that the apparent use of the cards is coldly statistical; that, with its limited scope for statement, it will miss the great opportunity that is offered by the establishment of a personal record of education progress. “At present a pupil leaves the primary school with a formal certificate of proficiency that conveys nothing but the attainment of a very vague standard of education,” said one teacher. “This certificate in no way indicates the special aptitudes that may have been observed. Other than as a passport to secondary education. or as a standard required for certain avenues of employment, its value is merely a sentimental one. Many educationists condemn it and the preparation for it, and the expenses incurred in the inspectors’ time testing for it. So little value do secondary schools put upon the certificates that they submit to further examination all entrants to their schools. The new card will obviate this, and will provide a much-needed link between primary and secondary education. If it went further with its information and was less statistical it would certainlv be of material advantage to the people principally concerned —the child, the parents, and the teachers.”

Certainly the average parent of a child at school would appreciate a complete commentary of that child’s progress, his strong points and his failings, from every teacher through whose hands he or she had passed. This would give parents an expert dispassionate viewpoint and would be of great value; but can all this be entered upon one card of about eight inches by five? “It would require a little book.’’ was one parent’s comment, “and the book should be sent regularly to the parents, and, when school is done with, it should pass into

the parents’ hands and not be allowed to moulder in dusty archives in Wellington.” SECRET MEDICAL REPORTS Exception is taken in some quarters to the keeping from parents of the medical particulars, gxcept under special circumstances. “The child, after all, belongs to the parents and not to the State,” said one parent who was interviewed. “There may be some good reason for this from the point of view of the school medical officers, but surely parents should be fully acquainted with the physical condition of their own offspring.” Parents at the presents time have the privilege of attending at the school when their children are being examined by the doctor. If they are not there, and in many cases it is impossible for them to be, they are merely notified of any physical defects that require attention. That parents should be made fully acquainted in all cases with the full details of the doctor’s examination seems to be a very general opinion. Taken as a whole, the opinion of those chiefly concerned in the innovation of the card system seems to be favourable. It is recognised that a little extra trouble may be caused by starting it and by lost cards, but this will be got over in time. It is also thought by many that the department has taken a step in the right direction, but that it might have gone further; and the hope is expressed that the scheme will be developed on lines away from mere statistics. Before having launched the scheme at all, if the Department had secured a broad expression of opinion from all interests directly concerned, it might have been better still. As it is the progress card has dropped like a bolt from the blue upon the heads of teachers, who are not in a position as yet to appreciate fully its merits or demerits.