Last year for UE

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 23, 29 October 1985, Page 2

Last year for UE

About 60parents, pupils and staff attende'd a meeting on sixth form certificate and the removal of University Entrance from Form 6, at Ruapehu College last week. This is the last year that U.E. will be offered in the sixth form. Maurice Dellow, a secondary schools inspector seconded to the Department of Education to publicise the change, told the meeting that New Zealand had a large number of exams at the top end of the school and removing U.E. from the sixth form would ease the pressure. He pointed out that the U.E. certificate lists the subjects studied but does not give marks or grades, mainly because most students are accredited in what is already a form of internal assessment by schools. He said that sixth form certificate gave employers a much better statement of a student's ability with its nine-point scale. Different subjects will have different methods of assessment, and students will be told these at the beginning of the year.

Certain subjects, such as art, are more suited to assessment by individual assignment, whereas others, such as physics, may be better assessed by exam. In the latter case, most students of physics will tend to go to university anyway. If students are dissatisfied with their assessments they will have the right to appeal, first to the principal, and if still unhappy, to the Department of Education. Mr Warbrick, college principal, said students will now have to keep their marked assignments on file in case they needed to appeal. He said that one of the great worries was whether the assessments of different schools, would be comparable. "Yet U.E. is already accredited on school marks, and that is accepted as comparable," he said. Although it is not settled it is probable that seventh formers will be able to qualify for U.E. by marks they get in University Bursary exams. Those who leave at the end of Form 6 will still be able to go to university if they can satisfy the university that they can handle university studies.