324 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
what is called ‘ General Science” in this report). While this committee is 
of opinion that the recommendation if adopted would lead to an improvement 
in the study of biological sciences, yet it would prefer some alteration in 
the syllabuses set for examination purposes which would ensure that all 
candidates sitting for the science papers should have passed through an 
adequate course of General Science as defined previously. 
1'The report suggests that optional papers in chemistry, physics and biology 
should be retained as additional subjects, and candidates should be allowed 
to take one or more of these. Candidates who, in good faith, take all these 
additional papers might be exempted from the Elementary Science paper. 
The present system of examinations encourages a narrow specialisation 
which is unsound educationally. A school may find that candidates for, 
say; physics only have a greater chance of examination success under the 
present arrangement than they would if they took General Science. ‘ It 
will be clear that such an attitude towards science teaching is due to 
making the School Certificate Examination an end in itself rather than 
a means to test the results of a course of general education before the pupil 
begins such a course of specialisation as is appropriate for secondary 
schools.”’ (Circular 849, B. of E.) ‘It is a cardinal principle that the 
examination should follow the curriculum and not determine it’ (loc. cit.), 
A course which deliberately sacrifices the best education of the pupil to the 
desire of passing an examination is hard to defend. 
A further recommendation of the panel is that which advocates ‘ Easy 
papers and a high standard of marking.’ 
The plain fact is that it is extremely difficult to test a pupil’s appreciation 
of science, and possibly no written test can be adequate. The one person 
who should be able to say whether the pupil is well grounded in science is 
the teacher. If the teacher is personally known to the examiner, the latter 
may be able to judge of the value of his opinion. Actual contact between 
examiner and teacher is very desirable. One examining body sends an 
examiner to each school for the practical examinations in science, and it is 
clear that the system has great advantages. In a few years the examining 
body would have a shrewd idea of the value of each school and of each 
science teacher, whereby the work of the pupils could be more accurately 
known and assessed. ‘The chief obstacle in the way of adopting the system 
generally is the size of some of the School Certificate Examinations. (Over 
17,000 candidates sat for the School Certificate Examination of one 
authority in 1931.) 
The committee feel bound to state, however, that they see no ultimate 
value in this tendency to standardisation of methods, materials and results. 
Assuming that the one perfect School Certificate Examination were uni- 
formly adopted, the committee would not be satisfied. It is a common- 
place to say that much of the work of a school cannot be examined, and it is 
not too much to say that many of the most valuable parts of a pupil’s make-up 
cannot be tested by any written work. This applies with great force to 
a pupil’s work in science. The efficient school will continue to turn out the 
good pupils and the inefficient school the bad ones however perfectly the 
School Certificate Examination be devised, and the committee feel that 
efforts to increase the efficiency of schools are of more ultimate value than 
efforts to improve the efficiency of examinations. If it is asked to state 
what efforts it has in mind, the committee would suggest more frequent 
inspection, more pedagogic research, a more rigorous selection of candi- 
dates for the teaching profession, more efficient training of teachers. 
1 This committee would have preferred the report to have included options so 
that pupils could take papers in Botany, Zoology or Biology as additional subjects. 
ay 
