Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemFrom ‘tech’ school to academe: personal narratives and the history of technical education, 1931-1988( 2002)'From "tech" school to academe: personal narratives and the history of technical education, 1931-1988', explores technical education at junior, intermediate, trade, post-trade, diploma, and degree levels, including technical and TAFE teacher education. The methodology is autobiography-as-history and history from documents: the narratives convey life stories of men and women - my technical education people - who have had a significant technical education involvement, their transition through primary, secondary/technical and trade/post secondary education to higher education. Emergent documentary themes include: affirmation of technical education during the Great Depression, notwithstanding the 1931 McPherson 'Economy Committee'; the very important contribution to the war-effort, 1939-45, the Commonwealth Technical Training Scheme, to post-war reconstruction and ex-service rehabilitation, the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, and a program for the war-wounded; the 1950s, extension of Commonwealth Government involvement in university education through the Murray Committee report (1957) and initiatives in senior, apprentice and junior technical education, the latter including psychology and guidance and school chaplaincies; the 1960s, the Martin Committee binary system report, leading to the Victoria Institute of Colleges (1965), in apprenticeship, the introduction of block release and a reduced term of training, and in junior technical education, trends to a liberalised curriculum; 1972-75, the Whitlam Reforms, including the Karmel Schools Commission and needs-based funding, Commonwealth full-funding of tertiary education, the abolition of student fees, and the Kangan Report, its recommendation of capital and recurrent funding of the new TAFE sector with its philosophy of open access, broad-based, vocationally-oriented recurrent education; in apprenticeship, introduction of the modular curricula, and in junior technical education, developments which made it the most comprehensive sector under flexible, autonomous administrative arrangements; the 1980s, the ending of the binary system of tertiary education with the Dawkins' program of 1988, expansion of TAFE's utility function, and closure of the secondary technical schools, an outcome of the 1985 Blackburn Committee recommendations, their passing part political, part technological, part social, part economic and, at official levels, barely acknowledged. Emergent narrative themes include: the antecedent work-ethic and underdog culture; family resourcefulness, resilience and moral integrity; puzzles of childhood; school experiences, for example as a junior student during the 1940s or as an adult in post-war rehabilitation training; employment experiences, for example in sheetmetal during the 1930s; trade teaching in the 1940s and Special Method lecturing in the 1950s; mentoring and role modelling; trainee resourcefulness; diverse pathways to technical education; system flexibility; enabling school leadership; chronic resourcing deficits; teacher professionalism; the vital 'acco' -'tradie' mix; innovations in technical curricula, including co-ed, pastoral and welfare initiatives, for example work experience and the alternative techs; the dynamism of the 1970s, including Kangan and TAFE, university accessibility, and introduction of the new technologies; the 1980s, concern for the loss of the technical schools and their comprehensiveness, inclusiveness and egalitarianism; ambivalence about TAFE - accessible, occupationally relevant yet doctrinaire and narrow; concern for the demise of dedicated technical teacher education; and the personal integration of my technical education people. In the light of the narrative and documentary evidence, I conclude that technical education has delivered clear personal and social benefits.
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ItemA history of aims in printing education in Melbourne 1870-1970( 1977)Aims in printing education have reflected a tradition of craft distinction. This has helped fashion the peculiar contributions of industrial or educational groups and individuals. In the 1880s the printing union, a relatively articulate group, led the way in promoting health and education provisions for regulating apprenticeship under a factories act. Latent education ideas were evoked in the 1890s by the economic depression and radical technological change with the introduction of the Linotype. These ideas were embodied into a self-help scheme of printing education by enthusiasts, the first classes being held in the Athenaeum in .April 1898. The scheme was adopted as the basis of a course in the Working Men's College when impracticalities became obvious. Classes commenced in June 1899. Printing employee groups maintained policies for government controlled apprenticeship and for state provision and supervision of technical education. These attitudes were gradually confirmed by master printers. Printers tended to have an advanced attitude regarding apprenticeship regulation, particularly compulsory day-time training provisions, under consideration by commissions, apprenticeship conferences and in legislative bills between 1900 and 1927. Technological and economic change in the 1920s and 1930s encouraged individuals in the trade to foster apprenticeship reform, curriculum development and self-help printing education. In the late 1940s a group with printing and educational interests, motivated by a desire to control printing education more effectively, took initiatives which led to the establishment of a mono-purpose printing school under the Education Department. The Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts received its first printing apprentices in May 1950. The principal, staff and school council were pre-occupied with problems of accommodation, plant and equipment in the 1950s and 1960s. Even so, at least equal attention was given to entry and achievement standards and curriculum development in apprenticeship courses in practice, theory, design, science and “liberal” studies. Also the principal, in particular, and industrial representatives espoused technician and technologist level printing education. Thus aims and developments have represented an amalgam of traditional craft assumptions of worth and value as well as responses to the prevailing technological and economic environment.