Entries Tagged: Government schools

An archive of entries with keywords: "Government schools"

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 »

Technical secondary schools

Victoria, Australia, 1910-2015

The establishment of post-elementary technical schools in Australian states in the early twentieth century was one of several responses to the growing pressure to provide some form of universal secondary education for all adolescents. The Australian state, Victoria, constructed a long-lasting system of such schools that distinguished public education in that state from elsewhere.… Continue Reading »

Knibbs and Turner Commission and Reports

New South Wales, 1900-1914

The Commission on Primary, Secondary, Technical, and Other Branches of Education was appointed in New South Wales in early 1902. Commissioners George Handley Knibbs, University lecturer, and John William Turner, Headmaster of Fort Street Model School, travelled widely in Europe and America enquiring into education for the purpose of reforming education in New South Wales.… Continue Reading »

Correspondence School, Blackfriars

New South Wales, 1916-1967

The problem of how to educate young people in sparsely settled and remote locations has been with the Australian colonies, territories and states for more than two centuries. Successive solutions included subsidised, provisional, part-time and travelling schools, as well as the delivery of curricula by means that have responded to changing information technologies.… Continue Reading »

Milner, Frank

New Zealand, 1875-1944

Among the many New Zealand male and female secondary school principals who served their respective institutions and communities dutifully throughout the twentieth century were a small number of school leaders whose educational and societal contributions were, and are, especially noteworthy. Frank Milner features prominently within their ranks. His educational work has been—and remains—significant for several reasons.… Continue Reading »

Junior teachers (2)

South Australia, 1936-1945

Teacher preparation in Australia has a complex history. The balance between school-based and college or university-based preparation tends to be rethought in every generation. It took until well into the twentieth century for ill-managed, often exploitative, pupil-teacher and junior teacher preparation schemes to be replaced by arguably superior forms of teacher training and teacher education.… 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 »

Making the Difference (1982)

Australia, 1970-2010

This book was co-written by R. W. Connell (Bob/Robert/Raewyn), D. J. Ashenden (Dean), S. Kessler (Sandra) and G. W. Dowsett (Gary). It was almost certainly the most influential social study of schooling that was written in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. It had an impact on educational policy, the sociology of education, teacher education, teacher union policy and teachers.… Continue Reading »

Comprehensive government high school

Australia, 1950-2010

The idea that a secondary school could include all youth in a community or neighbourhood, regardless of their social circumstances, belongs to the twentieth century. By the 1970s such comprehensive schools educated a majority of Australian 12-17 year-old youth, but the size of the majority has been in a steady, though slow decline, from the 1980s.… Continue Reading »

Karmel Report: Schools in Australia

Australia, 1972-1974

After the federal Labor government, led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, won office in 1972 it moved quickly to implement its election promises for school reform.

The Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission was appointed in December 1972, to be chaired by Professor Peter Karmel. The Committee was to examine the position of government and non-government primary and secondary schools throughout Australia and make recommendations on their needs and on ways of meeting the needs.… Continue Reading »