A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

196 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

typical classes in several schools to determine difficulty of the elements
of the test; (d) rearrangement of the items of the test in order of
difficulty; (e) final printing.
Now if the Bureau checks up properly the work of the various divisions these changes must be made in any event. The point of issue,
however, is this: how many pupils should be tested,-all or merely
small sample groups? At the present time the Bureau examines all
pupils above the fourth grade. This is an extravagant practice. The
work of the divisions can be adequately checked by testing sample
sections from selected grades. As a result of the testing work of the
survey it is our judgment that the measurement of thirty to forty thousand pupils annually, selected properly, would supply the central bureau
with a 'very complete check on the work of the various divisions. If
this administrative check-up were made there would be no need for the
testing of each individual pupil.
THE ABOLITION OF FINAL EXAMINATIONS WOULD MATERIALLY
IMPROVE THE INSTRUCTIONAL WORK OF THE SCHOOLS
The greatest benefit to be derived from the proposed abolition of
examinations would come in the radical elimination of wasteful "reviews" which now dominate the last month and more of the school year.
The practice is almost universal in the high schools and very general
in the intermediate schools for teachers to begin to "review" early in
February. The members of the Commission saw this reviewing going
on in high schools in the last week of January. The review is of the
most mechanical, factual type, oriented specifically to get pupils ready
for the final examinations. It is not a fine summary and big interpretation of the movement of the work that pupils get from the review.
If it were, the time devoted to it would be very valuably spent. Nothing is more important than that young people be trained in organizing
and interpreting masses of data, in getting big perspectives, in seeing
clearly the working of fundamental principles, tendencies, and trends.
But the "review" work of the schools of the Philippine Islands is not
of that desirable type. It is a mere memorizing of facts, mostly in
isolated form, and especially in the form which teachers know from
experience will most surely prepare their pupils to meet factual examinations in a satisfactory manner.
The point should be emphasized therefore, that to abolish the final
examinations will extend the school year by at least one month, six
weeks in many instances. We believe it will correspondingly tend to
minimize memoriter learning. The instruction of the entire system is
mechanical fact-memorizing. There is almost no training in thinking,
in the organization of data, in independent study and investigation, in