7 JUNE 1946, Page 13

PASSING OF THE SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

Sta,—Your readers may rest assured that the demand for the abolition of the School Certificate examination is by no means wholeheartedly sup- ported by schoolmasters in the true Secondary Schools of the country, whose reputation has been built up with so much labour since 1902. Far from desiring to avoid external checks and to hide their own supposed deficiencies, as your correspondent suggests, those teaching in such schools fear that the ending of such examinations is but one more move in a general attack on their position. First came the decision to call " secondary " any school catering for pupils over eleven, though obviously the schools cannot in fact be 'put on the same level just by giving them the same name. Then came the decision to pay all schoolmasters at the same basic rate and the failure to give any real value to that university training which had hitherto been rated highly by comparison in every secondary school. Afterwards came the decision to give to every State school the same vacations, so that the masters and pupils whose evenings and week-ends are taken up with preparation and marking throughout each term will have no longer holiday periods than those who are free from 4 o'clock every day. Nov comes the decision to abolish the School Certificate. Obviously it must go if all State schools are to be placed on' the same level ; otherwise the farce of " secondary education for all " would be exposed. The result can only be to exalt the independent school at the expense of the State school, and to widen a gap that was being closed. Does anyone believe that an internal certificate from the head- master of a State school will carry equal weight With one from the head- master of Rugby or Shrewsbury? The Certificate examination has, how- ever, shown that State scholars can beat those from the older schools.—

Yours, &c., F. S. MARSTON. Cambridge and County High School for Boys.