Abstract
The Proficiency Examination is popularly regarded as the culmination of the primary school course, and it is probable that every factor of any kind - even ante-natal and certainly pre-school - that has affected the life, the outlook, the personality of any particular child has some bearing, remote or proximate, on the Proficiency result of that child.
This thesis is a critical examination of the 1935 proficiency examination in Dunedin schools, its significance and reliability, with subsidiary enquiries into
a) A consideration oil the loss of pupils without passing Standard Six (form 11) both from Dunedin schools and from the schools of Hew Zealand.
b) A study of the rates of failure in the Dunedin schools during recent years.