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Dorothy Kass, Ph.D., Macquarie University. Posted .
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 »
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 »
Junior teachers proved to be a considerable asset for education authorities during the straitened financial periods of World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. Apart from a brief period of prosperity in the early 1920s, untrained, lowly paid junior teachers were used extensively in South Australia to alleviate pressures arising from these events.… Continue Reading »
Pupil teachers were introduced into South Australia to remedy a growing shortage of teachers for government subsidised schools as the colony expanded during a period of increasing prosperity in the early 1870s. It also needed to introduce its own teacher training system to ensure both future and immediate supply of teachers to meet the demand.… Continue Reading »