Entries Tagged: Denominational schools

An archive of entries with keywords: "Denominational schools"

National schools

Eastern Australia, 1840-1870

The idea that colonial governments might foster and fund schools detached from church governance belongs to the 1830s. By then, with the religious diversity of the colonies, it was beginning to seem impossible that the Church of England could by itself provide a dominant ‘public’ school system. There were too many Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Congregationalists and more for easy acceptance of such a position.… Continue Reading »

School choice and school markets

Australia, 1788-2018

For most of Australia’s European settlement history opportunities for parents and others to choose schools for the children in their families and care were absent or highly constrained. The major effort over the long term was to provide schools for increasing proportions of the population, and by the end of the nineteenth century, to compel families with limited interest in schooling children, to force their attendance.… Continue Reading »

Teaching orders in New Zealand

New Zealand, 1850-1900

Catholic schools, faith and a basic education

The purpose of Catholic schooling in nineteenth century New Zealand was to provide an education for the whole of life and to enable the correct development of a child’s whole character of mind and heart. The Church stressed the importance of the educative roles of parents, but they believed that Catholic parents lacked the education and expertise necessary to fulfill these responsibilities.… Continue Reading »

Church and Schools Corporation

New South Wales, 1820-1835

The impulse to systematise schooling in the colony of New South Wales occurred early. In the relative absence of wealthy churches, philanthropists and well-established communities, the colonial government needed to play a role in educating young people. The idea that criminality (the convict ‘stain’) could be prevented from passing down the generations through interventions such as chaplain-supervised and a little later church-subsidised schooling was accepted by most of the early governors.… Continue Reading »

Inspector William Knowles Miller (1830-1861) and the early National schools of Victoria

Victoria, Australia, 1850-1860

National schools were founded from 1848 in greater New South Wales. They were governed by a board established and funded by the colonial government. The curriculum of the National schools was utilitarian, based on ‘common Christianity’ principles [see Glossary]. They were expected to expand the access of families to schooling, especially in areas where private or denominational (church) schools were either absent or unsatisfactory.… Continue Reading »

Free, compulsory and secular Education Acts

Australia, 1850-1910

In each of the Australian colonies, usually in the 1870s, there were education acts passed that established public school systems. Their defining characteristics have usually been described as ‘free, compulsory and secular’. The Act that came closest to establishing all three of these conditions at the same time was the Victorian Education Act of 1872.… Continue Reading »