Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemGeelong High School 1909-16 : a study of local response( 1978)The years 1909-16 saw the expansion of public secondary education within Victoria. It represents the working out of certain aims and policies for secondary schools between a centralised Education Department in Melbourne and the local communities that were financially involved in the provision of these facilities. This thesis will attempt to identify the forces shaping the development of Geelong High School. It will outline the aims and values of this community and evaluate the significance of their perception of what secondary education should be about. The study will look at the role of the Education Department - its director, its administrative philosophy and the attitude of the State Government towards the expansion of secondary education. The study will examine the interplay of these factors with the significant contribution of the school's educational leadership and philosophy. The main argument of the thesis is that the success of Geelong High School was to a large extent due to its support from a middle class. They saw in the school opportunities for their children resulting from an education that was financially beyond them at the prestigious fee-paying public schools. In responding to these needs the school would survive in spite of almost overwhelming odds in its early years. A comparative study with Colac Agricultural High School will be made to clarify the point that it was community support, and not legislation and regulations from the Department, that was to be the main reason for the success of Geelong High School.
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ItemThe movement to establish a higher technological institute in Victoria, 1940-1963( 1976)The general thesis is that the series of episodes during this period, during which attempts were made to establish a higher technological institute, constitute an important background to the policy adopted with respect to non-university tertiary education in Victoria as a result of the Martin Report of 1965. In 1940 demands were made within the Technical Schools' Association of Victoria and the Council of Public Education by W.G. McRobert and G.R. King for degrees in technical science to be awarded by Melbourne Technical College. This is seen as initiating a series of moves forming a continuous thread, ending about 1963 with the Ramsay Report on the future of tertiary education in Victoria. The course of a number of proposals for a higher technological institute are traced: the movement for an institute of technology, 1943-1947, including the Seitz Committee and Report; the joint college of technology proposal by the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne Technical College, 1948-1950; the University of Technology Committee of 1955-1956 and the impact of the Murray Committee; the establishment of Monash University, 1958 and the search for alternative solutions to the problem of higher technological education; and the impact of the Ramsay and Martin enquiries during the early 1960s. Some themes developed include the effect of the 1939-1945 war on the public esteem for technical education; the attitude of the University of Melbourne towards proposals for other degree-granting institutions; the significance of the failure of the draft institute of technology bill, 1947; the failure of the university of technology proposal and the crisis over student demand for university education of the early 1960s; and the tension between state and commonwealth attitudes to the development of tertiary education in Victoria in the early 1960s. A continuous thread throughout the story is the aspiration of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to attain an unquestioned pre-eminence in higher, technological education. Victoria was not, in fact, able to establish the higher technological institute which had been supported by a number of important groups in Victorian education during the period. An important conclusion is that the role of the technical colleges prescribed by the Martin Committee in fact pre-empted the situation by diverting the largest of Victoria's technical colleges from its possible destiny as a higher technological institute. Rather it became one of a number of colleges of advanced education whose purpose was to extend, in an economical manner, tertiary education opportunities on a broad front.
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ItemThe role of women in the Victorian Education Department, 1872-1925( 1977)This thesis examines the role of women teachers in the state schools of Victoria from 1872 to 1925. As women constituted half of the teaching service, and as the Education Department drew a distinction between teachers on the basis of sex, it has been possible to look at the women teachers as if they formed a homogeneous group. An examination of the legislation, the periodic reviews, the practices of the Department and other contemporary evidence, makes it clear that women teachers were essential to the maintenance of a widespread, comprehensive education system. This conclusion is based on two major factors, supply and cost. For many reasons women were always available as teachers and were employed extensively. As their employment was combined with the practice of paying women less than men for the same, or very similar tasks, the development and maintenance of a system of education was made easier for the governments of Victoria in spite of almost constant pressure for economy. These two aspects form the basis of parts 1 and 2. Through two case studies, part 3 approaches the role of women differently. The assumption is made that women do not form a homogeneous group but are divided by broad issues of class, religion and politics as well as narrow and more specific issues. Two kindergarten experts, women with diverse backgrounds, provide the material for the first case study. Their expectations, contribution and recognition are examined, as is their relationship with other members of the teaching service. The second case study concentrates on the Victorian Lady Teachers' Association, a small, militant, feminist group which worked to have any differentiation between teachers based on sex removed. Although the group was not representative of all women teachers, it frequently spoke for them and was an important educational force. The two case studies, therefore, look at some of the varied roles filled by women, but more particularly highlight the differences amongst them and the difficulties of making generalizations about women or women teachers.