MAKING EXAMINATIONS DEARER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 February 1939, Page 4

MAKING EXAMINATIONS DEARER.

JJESIDES proposing to substitute accrediting, in an approved list of schools, for the matriculation examination —a change which may in the right conditions be a very desirable reform-— the University Senate has decided to make an increase ol 25 per cent in its examination fees other than those for the entrance examination. Although the defence of the Senate no doubt will be that it has no other apparent, means of satisfying its revenue requirements, it must be regretted that educational costs are in this particular to follow the prevailing upward trend. At their existing level the costs of attending a university fall rather heavily upon a considerable proportion of the students and of the parents of students. It appears to be as little in the public interest as in that of the individuals immediately concerned that any addition should be made to the burden thus imposed.

The proposal to do away in part with the entrance examination brings into prospect for the university authorities something in the nature of a financial crisis. This in itself is suggestive. Had the fee for the matriculation examination been assessed fairly in the first instance, no problem need have arisen. Where the examination was abolished, its cost would have been saved and no one would have been any worse off. It is Ihe prospective loss of the substantial margin of profit on the fee over and above the cost' of the examination that brings the University Senate up against a serious financial problem.. The problems of university finance admittedly are rather difficult, but the present matriculation fee must be regarded on the facts as extortionate and the decision to raise other examination fees by 25 per cent certainly will not be welcomed by those whom it chiefly concerns,