Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemA century of Presbyterian mission education in the New Hebrides : Presbyterian mission educational enterprises and their relevance to the needs of a changing Melanesian society, 1848-1948( 1974)The role of mission educational enterprises in developing territories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been examined in recent years. The relationship between mission schools and social, political and religious change has been reviewed in case studies of African, Asian and Pacific nations. The New Hebrides provides a unique opportunity to study the development of mission education policies in a territory in which government assistance and control over education was completely absent. On most of the islands of the New Hebrides group, the history of education from 1848 to 1948 is the history of Presbyterian Mission education.The New Hebrides Presbyterian Mission possessed neither the resources nor the policies necessary for the task of providing a broadly based national education system. Yet for more than a century, civil administrations left the entire responsibility for the provision of education in the hands of the Christian missions. The Presbyterian Mission willingly accepted this responsibility. It regarded education as an integral and essential part of its three-fold programme of evangelism, healing and teaching.(For complete abstract open document)
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ItemThe system of payment by results in Victorian elementary schools, 1864-1905( 1977)"Payment by results" was a system used to determine teachers' salaries, in full or in part, in some parts of the world in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was originally conceived in England by Robert Lowe, Vice-President of the Education Department, and incorporated in regulations issued in 1861. These regulations led to considerable dispute but reappeared, in a slightly modified form, in the Revised Code of 1862. The system came to an end in England in 1897 but at the turn of the century still remained in Mauritius and Victoria. It was first proposed in Victoria in 1862 by the Premier, (Sir) John O'Shanassy but was firmly rejected by the Legislative Assembly. Nevertheless a modified version came into operation in 1864. The Board of Education, newly created under the Common Schools Act was responsible for this. Whether O'Shanassy put covert pressure on this Board whose members were appointed by his Ministry is open to conjecture. Certainly at the time a large number of people, inside and outside Parliament, thought so. Educationists and historians have tended to view the system as something of a curio. However its ramifications were so great that it has to be viewed more seriously. The system lasted in Victoria for forty-one years - almost one-third of the history of the State - and therefore cannot be lightly dismissed. Not wanted in the first place, it nevertheless remained in operation until the end of 1905. It survived Royal Commissions, newspaper campaigns, political criticism, opposition from teachers, educationists, and the general public. However its grip on Victorian elementary education was broken only when the forces of change, heralded by the "New Education" towards the end of the nineteenth century, made it an anachronism.
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ItemOrigins of the Victorian Apprenticeship Commission: a history of apprenticeship regulation in Victoria 1896-1927( 1970)By the eighteen nineties, factory methods had encouraged looseness or avoidance of apprenticeship contracts. The improver system, under which employers were not responsible for teaching, flourished. Youths grew up insufficiently skilled to command full tradesman's pay, thus threatening adult jobs and wages. In 1896, following anti-sweating agitation, wages boards were established to determine minimum rates and maximum numbers of juveniles in certain seriously exploited trades. By 1900, this system was extended to other trades, but the minimum duration of apprenticeship contracts was set at only one year. Because employers resented limitation, wages boards in 1903 lost the power to fix the proportion of apprentices; but in compensation an apprentice was redefined as one bound to be taught for at least three years. Nevertheless, without adequate means of training, adequate definition of trade skills, or an adequate tribunal, the situation remained unsatisfactory. Trade classes were developed to supplement workshop experience, but they had little effect. In 1907 a Conference recommended that an Apprenticeship Commission take control of certain skilled trades and establish the numbers to be admitted as apprentices, their wages, and the goals and methods of their training, including technical education. Improvers would be excluded from those trades. Although wages boards gained power to prescribe indentures in 1909, and regained their limitation powers in 1910, when Bills to establish a Commission were presented in 1911 and 1912, both the form of the proposals and the antagonism of employers resulted in their rejection. A second Conference in 1911 recommended that apprenticeship be left to the wages boards. Between 1911 and 1921, the Federal Arbitration Court improved apprenticeship conditions in some trades; the technical school system developed its capacity, especially in preparatory work; and a Repatriation Training Scheme adopted organisational machinery similar to that proposed in 1907.