MAY MEAN HARDSHIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1053, 18 August 1930, Page 10

MAY MEAN HARDSHIP

EDUCATION CHANGES SCHOLARSHIP PROVISIONS “The proposals of the Education Committee in regard to scholarships are not democratic and will lead to hardships among the boys from poorer homes whom the scheme was designed specially to benefit,’’ declared Mr. IT. J. D. Mahon, headmaster of the Auckland Grammar School, on Saturday. He took exception mainly to the proposal to award maintenance bursaries without a compulsory competition examination. The fund built up by the University for this purpose was to he diverted. Boys of strong character and ability had been selected by scholarships in the past but there was no guarantee that this would continue by school awards. Mr. Mahon considers the extension of the individual card system to intermediate and senior grades would not be worth the trouble as they were pot very heipfLil and were incomplete. They were of little value to secondary schools or to the university in aiding classification. On the other hand, the issue of senior certificates he considered quite sound, but he doubted whether the public would be satisfied as they did not involve any external examination of known standard. In this he was supported by the headmaster of Mount Albert Grammar School, Mr. F. W. Gamble, who questioned whether employers would accept the certificates owing to the varying standards of different schools. Both headmasters agreed that the proposal to ask scholarship candidates to sign statements of their intention to proceed to the university if they were successful, and to pay the first term's fees, was not practicable. This might well involve hardship to the very students it was intended to benefit. OLD BOYS ANXIOUS The opinion that the proposals of the Recess Education Committee involved the destruction of a system which had produced the fine records of the Auckland Grammar School, was expressed in a resolution framed at a meeting of the, Auckland Grammar School Old Boys’ Associatiofi. All old boys were invited to support the association in opposing the recommendations.