27 MAY 1938, Page 3

Examinations and Holidays The committee, representing the Board of Education,

local authorities and the teaching profession, which met on Wednesday to discuss the effect of the adoption of the "holidays with pay" system on schools reached one emin- ently sensible conclusion—that external examinations, like the School Certificate and the Higher Certificate, should be banned from the holiday period (virtually the summer term) altogether. That is essential if holidays for wage- earners are to be spread, as the Committee on Holidays with Pay Committee suggested, over the period April- October, and children are to be given facilities to go away with their parents. In any case it is a bad system which ordains that children shall be working for examinations at the hottest period of the year, and when light evenings offer strong, and in many ways legitimate, distractions from work.