Teacher or judge

After an examination, one sometimes hears staff complaint over (A) who has done better than he should and (B) who has done worse. I am not here concerned with the point that examination is a salutary corrective to staff impressions, but with the status of such impressions. Most 'abolitionists" seem to think that "Term work" would be a more reliable indication of a student's worth, presumably because there is more of it and it is produced in more realistic surroundings. This may be correct, and it may not, but it implies that one function of university staff is the judging of students. I think staff should pause before accepting this, and that students should pause before urging it on their teachers. A judge's impartiality costs effort, and is infrequently achieved by professionals. In many subjects, to mark the twelfth piece of work with the same frame of mind as the first is not possible, and a serious attempt would exact more effort than the pieces of work are themselves worth. Some secondary schools do have a number of self-important staff with an exaggerated opinion of the value of concocted assignments and their "fair" assesment. Surely a university teacher's job, at least, is to teach, not sit in judgment.

A secondary but practical aspect of the assessment responsibility is precisely the risk of squandering teaching time. When "test" are set mainly for the sake of list of marks for each student the risk is high. (A "test" [unclear: can] of course, be a planned part of a teaching programme and can itself teach: the importance a lecturer gives to the teaching element may often be gauged by the time he spends "going over" the work with his students.)

Some staff, as well as students, are sceptical about the judgement there already is. Hearing recently of the failure of a student in a subject II had assumed passed, I asked what had happened. "No," I was corrected. "I would have passed, of course, but I wasn't given "Terms". They say Z at the first lecture of the year always picks on two or three students as the ones who intend to cause mischief−and these student can thereafter never do a right thing." This allegation may and may not be founded, but it should not be possible. [unclear: "Terms"] already prejudice staff-student relations in my opinion., further assessment responsibility would be an intolerable imposition.

Staff who prize the British tradition of tutor and small group of students, with personal contact opening the students' minds, give little importance to examinations. Staff who esteem the European tradition and trust in the values of scholarship to open the students' minds give little importance to examinations. Many of both groups wish to maintain the role of the examination because it is not important and because any replacement, though equally unimportant, would divert staff effort from its primary function to a trivial and incidental one.

New Zealand students conscious of student interests both now and after graduation realise that examination is to their advantage. Statistics, elements of chance and pusillanimous grievances of all kinds have to be seen in relation to the first function of examinations— which is to judge, not the student or his merit, but a particular performance; to judge it anonymously, without bias, partiality or personal preconceptions of any sort. We may, and should, try to ensure that the examination fulfils its purpose as well as its function, that the performance indeed indicates the general quality and ability of the candidates; and criticism of the gap here is constructive.

I have hoped to show that university examinations are one element in a set of relation ships, that they protect the student, that they ought not to be a major consideraion in any universiy tradition, that substituting staff judgment would be uniwise. New Zealand universities are not irrevocably fixed in particular traditions: there is real usefulness to knowledge of the variety of contemporary types of university.

H. V. George is the head of the English Language Institute.