PASSING OF THE SCHOOL CERTIFICATE
Sni,—There can be no doubt that, whatever Government had been returned to power after the General Election last July, one of the earliest steps taken by its Minister of Education would have been to implement the recommendation of the Norwood Report that the School Certificate Examination should be abolished. Hence no political issue is involved
by the announcement this week that its abolition is now a fait accompli.
Nevertheless, it has never been alleged that these School Certificate- Examinations were conducted either unfairly or inefficiently. As a matter of fact, meticulous care was taken by every one of the various university examination boards to ensure that the setting, marking and adjudication of the papers were highly efficient. The real trouble, accordingly, was due to the fact that unpleasant weaknesses were often revealed which caused not a few teachers much to prefer being themselves the sole assessors of their own work rather than to have it submitted to the judge- ment of any outside organisation, however efficient it might be.
Henceforth, employers of boys and girls who leave school at sixteen or
thereabouts—as the majority of secondary pupils do—will have to rely on testimonials from headmasters just as was the case sixty years ago. Such of them as are skilled in detecting what a testimonial omits may not lose much by the disappearance of a School Certificate ; but those who lack this gift will express themselves volubly to their business associates when they find, as no doubt many of them will, that the lad who was supposed to have done so well at school is incapable of composing a decent letter in his own language or of understanding a single sentence spoken by a foreigner in any other. The Ministry of Education evidently attaches little value to consistency. Else why should it insist on every child of eleven-plus passing what is actually an external examination to qualify it for admission to a secondary school? Presum- ably, before long, elementary teachers Al be up in arms against this ; especially as a child's education is more liable to interruptions before eleven years of age than subsequently.
Another fact to bear in mind is that the abolition of the School Certi- ficate Examination will not merely affect schools in this country. As a matter of fact, thousands of pupils from schools in different parts of the Empire have hitherto sat for it every year. Their worked papers were sent to England for correction, and the teachers of these schools no doubt believed that this examination kept them abreast with education in the Mother Country. Is it not a pity, then, to sever even such a small link as this connecting us with our colonies and dependencies overseas? Is the Government itself going to abandon competitive examinations con- ducted by itself for candidates for the Civil Service or other State appoint- meats? How can it logically continue these when it taboos all external examinations at the schools under its direction for pupils who have not reached the Higher Certificate stage? Or, again, will not the pupils at schools which are not under State contriiand who have taken a School Certificate Examination successfully before leaving it have a manifest advantage in this respect? All is not gold that glitters, and a hall-mark to it is never a disadvantar. Many employers, maybe, will share this opinion.
But, it may be urged, has not the Ministry of Education an excellent
inspectorate which can keep both teachers and scholars up to the mark without any need for an external examination organisation to do so? The present writer has every reason to know how competent are the inspectors engaged in higher-education work ; but how few of them there are and what long intervals exist between two. general inspections of a school! During the war these have been entirely in abeyance, and, even now, they have not yet got really going once more. On the other hand, how can any inspector really gauge the work of a teacher or of his pupils by one or two visits to a classroom lasting no more than an hour on either occasion? To some, therefore, whose life-work has been in the field of education, the decision to abolish the School Certificate Examina- tion will appear to be retrograde rather than progressive. Nor is it certain that pupils and parents alike would not prefer that, on leaving school, they should have something more tangible to show what had been achieved there than a home-made certificate.--Yours, &c., J. H. SHACKLETON BAILEY.
The Vicarage, Sr. Michaels-on-Wyre, Preston.
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