Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemDevolution: the local selection of teachers in Victorian state schools( 1991)This thesis is concerned with the devolution of administrative powers from the Central Ministry to local school communities. In particular, the focus is upon removing the Ministry's staffing function and giving it to individual schools. This will mean that schools themselves will select their own teachers. A review of how Victoria has administered education is given commencing from Colonial times up until the present decade. This reveals that education began as the domain of the churches and that teachers were originally employed by local school communities. It was not until 1872 that a Department of Education was established in Victoria with teachers becoming centrally employed. This system of central employment has dominated State education ever since. However, several recent events have challenged the Ministry's traditional system of central staffing. These include the local selection of Principals and their Deputies beginning in 1984, and the local selection of a new category of teacher - Advanced Skills Teacher 1- in 1991. The present system of staffing is debated and a proposal for local staffing is advocated. It is suggested that individual schools are more acutely aware of their needs and that the present structure of the Ministry cannot cope with the individual needs of the States 2000 schools. Moreover, the rationale against local selection is no longer as valid or relevant as it may have been last century.