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Campbell Report: Secondary Education for Canberra (1972)

Australian Capital Territory, 1966-1980

By Dorothy Kass Ph.D, Macquarie University. Posted .

Presented to the Minister for Education in December 1972, Secondary Education for Canberra: Report of the Working Committee on College Proposals for the Australian Capital Territory, was part of a wider movement for the reform of education in the ACT. Referred to as the “Campbell Report”, after committee chair Richard Campbell, its recommendations were accepted by the new Commonwealth Labor government and implemented in the following years.… Continue Reading »

School histories: Production, research and writing

Australia, 1950-2025

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

One of the most popular genres in the writing of educational history is that of individual schools. The quality of such histories varies quite dramatically as authorship proceeds from amateur enthusiasts to professional historians. The main problem with school histories is that they are usually written for the purpose of valorising or celebrating the existence of a school.… Continue Reading »

Employment of same-sex attracted teachers in schools

Australia, 1975-2020

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

Schools do not exist for the sole purpose of educating young people in the knowledge and skills that are mainly agreed as essential for employment, citizenship and social life in general. They are also about inculcating belief systems that may be more or less explicit, closed or open to critical challenge.… Continue Reading »

Merri Creek School for Indigenous children

Victoria, 1846-1851

By Carole Hooper, BA BEd PhD. Posted .

In late 1845, the minister and two deacons from the Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne sent a memorial to the superintendent of the Port Phillip District, Charles La Trobe, seeking permission to establish a day school for Indigenous children in the vicinity of the town. They proposed that the school be held in a four-roomed building, formerly occupied by Dr Macarthur, which stood on crown land situated at the confluence of the Yarra River and Merri Creek.… Continue Reading »

School Publications Branch

Aotearoa New Zealand, 1939-1989

By Frances Kelly, PhD, Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland. Posted .

The School Publications Branch of New Zealand’s Department of Education was established in 1939, during the second term of the first Labour Government. From 1940 Clarence Beeby, then Director of Education, oversaw the Branch’s activities. According to Beeby, School Publications flourished after he enabled its staff to exercise editorial and creative freedom (Beeby, 1957, p.… Continue Reading »

Education observed by an American: Isaac Kandel

Australia and New Zealand, 1930-1940

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

In the wake of the World War I, but more so, the second world war, United States governments began to assume a leadership role in world politics. Closely associated philanthropic agencies such as the Carnegie Corporation supported such a development. The colonies and dominions of the declining British Empire were of interest for a number of reasons, one of which was to bolster them as potential allies as Bolshevism and fascism threatened the “free” world.… Continue Reading »

New Education: Part 2

Australia, 1920-1940

By Dorothy Kass, Ph.D, Macquarie University. Posted .

The first two decades of the century witnessed widespread reform in educational policy and practice in the Australian states, a period often described by contemporaries and later historians as an “educational renaissance”. Primary school education for all children became accepted and expected throughout society and systems of post-primary education were established and growing.… Continue Reading »

New Education: Part 1

Australia , 1895-1920

By Dorothy Kass, Ph.D, Macquarie University. Posted .

In the late nineteenth century, widespread interest in the education offered to children was evident throughout the countries of Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, the colonies and former colonies of European empires, and in developing countries. A movement for the reform of education, that became known as “New Education”, was stimulated by educators, students, and authors who travelled to other countries for study or observation; book and journal publications and international conferences.… Continue Reading »

Australian education observed by Aleksandr Leonidovich Yashchenko

Australia, 1903

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

Note: Photographs of Indigenous persons who have passed away appear in this entry.

In 1903, the Russian scientist, Aleksandr Leonidovich Yashchenko visited Australia, two years after federation. Yashchenko was an accomplished scholar whose education and graduate training included zoology, anthropology and geography. He taught at prestigious colleges in St Petersburg. His visit to Australia was a research commission on behalf of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences. … Continue Reading »

Australian education observed by Sidney and Beatrice Webb

Australia, 1898

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

At the end of the nineteenth century there was much to interest visitors from Britain and Europe in Australia. The country was pioneering innovative forms of democracy such as votes for women, reducing the property franchise for various groups of voters and the use of the secret ballot at elections. There was also government sponsored industrial conciliation and arbitration, a response to the strikes and industrial turmoil of the early 1890s.… Continue Reading »