Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemInitiative and control : in the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Victorian government schools, 1973-80( 1985)The Disadvantaged Schools Program seemed a fertile field for the study of the relationship between initiative and control. While the need for organisational controls, in the interests of conformity, cohesion, security, co-ordination and effectiveness can hardly be disputed, neither can the urge of individuals to be themselves, and to act as they think best. While any group, organisation or society needs some pattern of regulation, both for its own sake and for the sake of its members, harmony is a heavenly rather than an earthly state. The intrinsic nature of man, the gap between prescribed and actual organisational goals, the effect of continual change in people, structures and external conditions, all serve to ensure that the interaction between people and organisations can never be smooth for long. The key problem awaiting solutions is the finding of the parameters of the optimal relation between the individual member of an organisation and it overall structure, between individual aims and organisational goals, between necessary mechanisms of delegation and control and individual needs and expectations.
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ItemFundraising in seven independent schools in Victoria : a pilot study( 1996)Structured fundraising is being formalised in independent schools through the establishment of development offices. Money raised through development aims to fill the gap between incoming money from fees and government grants and programs and resources considered necessary to provide exemplary education. However, development in schools is not only concerned with monetary gain. To achieve financial success, development officers must identify their supporters. To this end, friend raising is assuming greater importance in schools. Alumni and parents are nurtured to form a solid donor base within the school community. This study was designed to look at the development work being undertaken in seven independent schools in Victoria. The various fundraising strategies of these schools are described in the contexts of each of the selected schools' histories. Much of the development work being undertaken is influenced by the American experience. Australian independent schools can learn from the American experience. A model of the events and stages that appear from this pilot study is proposed as a contribution to ideas and concepts to offer interesting points for further study. The question of who constitutes the donor base and how development officers can identify this group is investigated. The types of programs to which donors give are also explored. Libraries are one area of schools which are likely to require substantial injection of funds, particularly as the use of new information technology is adopted in schools. Librarians need to be aware of the fundraising process within their school and any likely budgetary implications for their department. They can advise on aspects of fundraising where they have special expertise. The logistics of fundraising in schools frequently involves the use of volunteers. The study investigates the attitudes of development officers to this unpaid workforce, and if and how it can be used most effectively to assist development in schools. Librarians can be useful in this aspect because they have a long history of effective volunteer use in library programs. This is a descriptive study of development and fundraising practices in seven independent schools in Victoria. The study examined how fundraising is conducted by means of structured interviews with development officers responsible for implementation of development tasks and questionnaires to librarians in the same schools to expose specific aspects of the fundraising process in a school situation. Findings from this purposive sample of the population are not representative of all independent schools and refer only to the schools concerned. The data sheds light on aspects of fundraising and development practices and may be useful as reference for other independent schools. The study contributes to a better understanding of some of the factors that would be useful to explore further in a larger study of development and fundraising in schools. The issue of philanthropy in Australian schools is one which is currently of great importance given that an increasing number of independent schools are considering getting involved in development offices and fundraising activities.
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ItemSchools of the Future and curriculum development and implementation : an investigation( 1995)Restructure of the Ministry of Education has ensured that schools are no longer centrally administered but are self-managing within the Schools of the Future program under the Directorate of School Education. As a result, changes have occurred in many areas including administration, financial management, staffing structure and teacher support in areas such as curriculum. This study investigates three schools that are members of the Schools of the Future Pilot Program and seeks to find the effect that the changes from the Program, have had on Curriculum Development and Implementation. The study reviews the literature available on the topic, in particular the notion of self-managing schools in Victoria. Therefore it reviews information on the Schools of the Future Program. It also seeks to understand the effect of changes in curriculum policy and the provision of professional development. The study also seeks to explore the effect of leadership style on the implementation of curriculum within a school. Qualitative research methods were employed when data was collected from the three participating schools. The schools were selected for the following reasons: (i) they are members of the Schools of the Future Pilot Program(or Intake 1); (ii) they are situated in a similar socio-economic area; (iii) the author had ready access to those schools. By applying grounded theory technique to the data a model was developed - The Curriculum Triangle. This model is a suggested representation of what is occurring in the selected schools and could be used further to analyse data from schools, and thus generate the possible areas requiring professional development and curriculum leadership.
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ItemFacilitating school improvement through strategic and effective decision making: a case study of a Victorian rural secondary college( 2006)Having taught in three different secondary colleges, in terms of size and location and the way in which each school operates, I developed an interest in decision making processes used in schools. I believe that certain decision making processes are more effective than others in terms of facilitating school improvement. I have observed certain decision making processes that were ineffective and caused disharmony among staff, particularly with members of staff who were left out of the decision making process. Hence, I chose this study to highlight effective decision making processes and also to encapsulate the impact of effective decision making. Due to the broad nature of the topic of decision making and the volume of information on this subject, this study concentrates on two main theories. The first theory looks at methods of school management that increases the effectiveness of the school by drawing on the experience of the teaching staff and involving them in the decision making process within the school. By this method the principal might use a `collaborative' approach. This theory encapsulates the idea that more staff contributing towards making a decision is `better' than the individual making a decision, based on the view that this approach shows greater resourcefulness. The second theory comes from the notion that the school community is `better off' allowing the principal and the administrators who have experience and expertise in making decisions on particular matters using the individual decision making model. The underlying assumption for this theory is that the teaching staff will have more time in their classrooms, rather than spending time in making decisions that have little to do with the classroom teacher. This will then allow teaching staff to get on with the job of classroom teaching.
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ItemEquity funding: how is it used?( 2006)Using a case study approach this research investigates some of the different aspects of disadvantage within the school system. It looks at the ways in which equity funding is used in a variety of schools. The purpose of this research was to ascertain the stages, or processes, that schools go through before the equity dollar is spent. It investigates the decision making process, and the kinds of information or projections taken into account. It also looks at the issue of what it is that schools define as issues of equity, and the programs that they put in place to deal with those issues. This thesis focuses on the equity component of the Victorian Education Department's Student Resource Package. Beginning with an explanation of the current funding model used in Victoria, it goes on to explore the implications of this funding model on students in six metropolitan government schools. These schools differ in terms of the amount of equity funding they receive, their student intake and the strategies that they use to try to make education more equitable. Each school is examined through three key areas. The first key area is the decision making process within the school. This is found, across all six schools, to be robust and systematic. The second area is the programs that the school believes address equity issues. There was found to be a great variance in the type of programs run in schools, and the amount of programs run within schools. Essentially the schools that are eligible for the most equity funding are running the highest concentration of equity programs. The third key area for this thesis was that of staffing in schools, with the neediest schools pointing out difficulties in building talented staff teams. The key finding of this thesis is that more equity money needs to be made available to the most disadvantaged schools.