Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemEqual pay and the women teachers of the Victorian Education Department, 1939-1967( 1992)The history of equal pay for women teachers commenced well before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission awarded equal pay for work of equal value in 1972. This thesis examines the financial status of women teachers in the state schools of Victoria between 1939 and 1967. In particular, it covers the campaign for equal pay. This campaign was persistent and hard fought under the guidance of people such as Hilma Cranley, and with the support of influential trade unions and favourable international policy. In Victoria, female teachers constituted nearly half of the primary teaching service yet traditionally meagre regard was paid to their status. Women teachers were discriminated in terms of pay despite their skills and responsibilities being recognised as tantamount to men's. A study of the discrimination and the protracted campaign to achieve equal pay through the analysis of the policies of the governments, wage legislation, contemporary evidence and the archival records, makes it clear that the teachers' reasons for equal pay were legitimate and morally irrefutable. However, social attitudes, the set up of the work force, financial considerations and government reluctance slowed the introduction of equal pay. Through the examination of women's growing importance in the Australian working scene and social influences of the time, such as the Second World War, the teachers' equal pay campaign has been interpreted. The Victorian Teachers' Union monitored these changes, and as public support for equal pay grew, so did the prospects for achieving equal pay. As women were increasingly essential to the maintenance of a comprehensive education system, their low wage status could not be ignored. The teacher s campaign, with particular emphasis on the Victorian Teachers' Union, is therefore the focus of this thesis. The study concludes that the women's teachers financial status did improve, however, the struggle for equality of opportunity was still ongoing.
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ItemPayment by results as an innovation in Victorian education: with particular reference to the period 1868-1878( 1978)From 1863 to 1905 Victoria paid its teachers under the system of "payment by results". This system had been introduced in England by the Revised Code of 1862 and a version of it was adopted by the Victorian Board of Education in 1863. The essence of the system was that portion of a teacher's salary became directly dependent on the performance of his students in examinations. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the system of payment by results was an unjust system based on unsound principles and that it encouraged teachers to concentrate too much of their efforts on the teaching for "results". The outcome was an excess of mechanical teaching, of "cram" and of rote learning. The system was unsound in principle because it was not based on any proven theory of pedagogy, but was introduced in order to satisfy a desire for economy and efficiency. It was unjust because it was based on an unfounded lack of trust in Victoria's elementary school teachers - as evidenced by the results regulations and, indeed, by the whole concept of payment for "results". We will see that built into the results formula were various punitive clauses which operated to penalise teachers unfairly for factors over which they had little or no control. Furthermore, under this system teachers were to become the only servants of the State whose livelihood depended, to a certain extent, on the "results" they produced. With the Education Act of 1872, the Education Department of Victoria came into existence - replacing the old Board of Education - and it inherited, and continued to apply, the system of payment by results. Under the new Minister of Public Instruction, the Education Department continued to support the principle of payment for "results". However, from 1873 to 1878 - as evidenced by a study of the Minister's and Inspectors' reports to Parliament - we see emerging a greater willingness on the part of the Department to concede that there was a good deal of merit in the complaints of teachers, and some important concessions were made accordingly. In 1877, Charles Henry Pearson was appointed to conduct a one-man Royal Commission into education in Victoria and, while Pearson found certain faults with the system of payment by results, he still believed that it was correct in its principle and should be retained in order to ensure a continued diligent effort on the part of the teachers. Pearson did, however, make some important proposals. He recommended that less of a teacher's income should be dependent on the "results", and he favoured doing away with the punitive regulations relating to age and attendance. These proposals would, he believed, eliminate many of the problems relating to mechanical teaching, to "cram" and to rote learning. His proposals, however, were not put into effect, and we see that, while certain amendments were made to the results regulations, and various proposals put forward for its modification, the essential nature of the system of payment by results remained unchanged throughout the life of the Board of Education - and for the first six years of Departmental control.