The Academic Board, set up under the 1926 Amendment Act, and the Senate worked together pretty well under the prescribed conditions which, on the one hand, gave the Board the right to make recommendations on any matters affecting the University and special rights in respect of academic affairs, and, on the other hand, obliged the Senate to refer purely academic questions for prior consideration to the Board. None the less there was occasional friction, as when in 1928 the Senate referred back to the Board, without giving reasons, new prescriptions agreed on by the professors concerned, and again, in 1936, when the Senate overrode a unanimous decision of the professors of English.

The “unit” and the “stages” system adopted for arts in 1926 was in the next year extended to science subjects and courses, and reform of the examination system went on steadily.

In 1930 a Council of Legal Education, comprising representatives of the profession and of the law faculties, was established to which the Senate was obliged to refer matters concerning degrees in law. An amendment Act in 1928 had given representation to the two agricultural colleges on the Academic Board, and under the stimulus of the new professors of the Massey College, the course for the degree of B.Ag. was completely reconstructed in a way that made the scientific content overshadow farm work, not that practical experience was overlooked.

Much discussion took place in the early thirties about the standard of entry — the matriculation examination; and while there was general agreement in the University about the need to raise the pass level, there was less agreement about how to achieve the desired result. The introduction of scaling of the examiners' marks had some effect in later years if only that of making the examination, indirectly, a competitive one. In 1944 an accrediting system was introduced, and, as a corollary, the appointment of liaison officers between schools and the colleges.

The extramural student always had been a subject for argument, extreme academic opinion being that he should be got rid of as soon as possible. The statute (calendar 1961) prescribes that as from 1961 exemption shall not be granted in any subject for B.A. or B.Sc. degrees at Stage III unless the student has completed, as an internal student, at least three units including a Stage II unit.