Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Teacher training in Carlton: the predecessors of the Institute of Education
    Garden, Donald S. (1947-) ( 1992)
    On 1 January 1989 the Melbourne College of Advanced Education and the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne were amalgamated to form the Institute of Education within the University of Melbourne. Although the two institutions had in various forms resided on adjacent campuses in Carlton/Parkville for several decades, both devoted to teacher education, they brought together different educational cultures. Melbourne CAE was descended from a long line of government-controlled teacher training institutions which had operated at first in Melbourne and from 1889 at Carlton in the corner of the University campus. Melbourne Teachers College was for most of this history the main institution for the training of teachers for Victorian government primary schools, but also played a significant role in the training of most types of teachers until the Second World War. It had little independence and was used largely as an instrument of policy by the Education Department and its political masters, subject to the vagaries of changing policies and economic conditions. These also affected the conditions and status of the teaching profession, which in turn impacted on the appeal of the profession and therefore on the socio-economic and gender mixture of recruits to the College. After 1945 teacher education became fractured into several geographically spread and more specialized colleges, and MTC was joined on its campus by a new Secondary Teachers College. During the 1950s and 1960s MTC and STC essentially ran pragmatic courses which churned out large numbers of teachers to fill places in the burgeoning number of schools. The two colleges merged in 1972 and gained independence from the Department in 1973. After much tossing and turning in the tertiary sector, in 1983 the Carlton college was amalgamated with the Institute of Early Childhood Development as Melbourne CAE. The University of Melbourne commenced its formal involvement in teacher education in 1903 when a liaison was established with MTC. For three decades MTC and the Faculty (as it became in 1923) shared their senior officer, administrative links, courses and students. The closeness was a two-edged sword for the University, for while greatly assisting the Faculty's work it also brought a substantial and frustrating degree of Education Department influence. The links were broken in the late 1930s, against the University's will, but thereafter the Faculty enjoyed greater intellectual and administrative freedom, and pursued its own course development. It came increasingly to be involved in theoretical and research studies, and to look down (with some justice) on its Department-dominated, less intellectually-oriented college neighbours. During the 1950s-1970s the Faculty was also under great pressure to meet the demand for teachers, and as a result somewhat lost its way as an intellectual and educational force. Throughout their history the institutions were influenced by diverse professional and community attitudes, philosophies and needs - how children should be raised, how schools are best organized, the most appropriate moral and instructional content of education, the attributes required in a teacher, and how teachers are best trained and/or educated. Rising standards of living and new technology, and the demands of the labour force, produced different occupational needs. All of this contributed to changing community expectations of schooling and teacher education.