LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
• The Examination Age-Limit
Sta.—The opposition to the examination age-limit is more authoritative than Mr. Jacks suggests. The age-limit is condemned by a great majority of the Headmasters' Conference and has been generally deplored by Viee-Chancellors and officials and teachers in universities.
The burden of that opposition is not that it makes difficult internal organisation in the schools, though that is true, but that it gravely restricts, without compensating advantages, the freedom of schools to do what is best for their pupils. This freedom is extolled in theory, but diminished in practice. The report of the Secondary Schools' Examination Council, in which the new provisions were set out, declares that "the schools will be the best judges of the suitability of courses, and the examinations should serve and not dictate school courses." But the opposite is happen- ing. Pupils in schools have necessarily to be taught in groups. The grouping by calendar age impedes grouping by capacity, achievement and individual need.
On the face of it the new a la carte system of subjects has advantages over the old table d'hôte in that it makes it easier to provide for
individual needs ; but the examination has also to serve the requirements of university matriculation. The universities require candidates for matriculation to qualify in at least five or six subjects. Thus fifteen- year-old pupils, who formerly could satisfy such requirements before proceeding to sixth-form work, now have to carry on in the sixth form the study at an elementary level of thirteen subjects from which they should have passed on to more interesting and valuable work: They will have less time for their proper sixth-form studies or alternatively for the courses of broad educational value commonly provided not for examination purposes in non-specialist studies at sixth-form level Narrow" and "premature" specialisation stands self-condemned ; but to erect safeguards against it to the detriment of proper sixth-form work is a disservice to education. • If the age-limit stays it will have to be circumvented, and schools are re-planning as best they can ; but the re-planning is not as simple as the Headmaster of Durham appears to suggest. It will frequently happen
that half a form must take an examination and the other half be debarred ; and it will be hard to resist the not unreasonable demand. of
parents that their sons and daughters should, by way of insurance, secure full matriculation or professional qualifications as soon as they are permitted by age to do so.
But the most disquieting element is the imposition of the age-limit from Whitehall, and this in disregard of the repeated assurance contained
in the Report that the "schools alone are in a position to decide what is best for their pupils and they need the utmost freedom and flexibility to give effect to their judgements." It is absurd that schools should be told they have freedom then fettered in this way.—Yours faithfully, The Head Master's, Harrow-on-the-Hill. R. W. MOORE.
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