The Crises In Australian Education

Australian, like British and American education, is in a state of crisis; both because it does not provide the material requirements for satisfactory child and youth upbringing, and because the social system expressed through the present educational theory and practice creates barriers to the full education of most children and adolescents.

As to material needs, it is well known that, from the time a child enters a kindergarten until he leaves school or university, he is rarely, if ever, in a class small enough to enable him to receive the attention and assistance he needs if he is to develop his potential to the full.

In infants’, primary, and high school alike, the normal class sizes are around 40-50, and in some cases approach 60. When a teacher is absent through illness, his class is divided amongst existing ones, increasing the numbers still farther. In some States there is no relieving staff of teachers; in others the relieving staff is inadequate.

Senior secondary classes, even those taking the Leaving Certificate, are sometimes kept for weeks or months without a specialist teacher in a particular subject.

Forty to fifty pupils, in many instances, are crowded into classrooms built to accommodate 30 or 36. Over 50% of the 500,000 pupils in NSW are taught in classes of over 40, and in most schools pupils are constantly unsettled by movement from room to room.

In many of the private and denominational schools the position is as bad; in some it is worse, with classes frequently reaching the number of 70 or 80, and sometimes exceeding 100. Only in the expensive private schools are the numbers of a suitable size.

The Commonwealth Year Book for the years 1952-4, shows that, in Victoria, there are almost twice as many teachers, proportionate to the number of children, in private (non-Catholic), as compared with state schools. With these exceptions, all pupils, even the most able, suffer to some extent.

In a class of 40 to 50 pupils, the most devoted teacher finds it quite impossible to do more than give mass-instruction. The personal attention to the needs of each pupil, which is the essence of good educational practice, becomes impossible; matters of control and discipline in oversized classes, crammed into rooms of inadequate size, occupy an undue part of the teachers’ time and energy, and limit the possibility of a proper educational atmosphere in which the pupil is able to make normal progress. The huge volume of correction of written exercises becomes an intolerable burden. It is no exaggeration to say that almost all of the skilled teachers in Australian public schools feel, to a greater or less degree, thwarted and frustrated, because the material conditions actually make it impossible for them to carry out sound educational procedures.

In conditions of modern industrial society, especially in the congested inner-city areas, pre-school institutions are basic in child-training. Furthermore, they are essential to enable working mothers, who comprise a substantial percentage of the workforce, to continue in industry; and to provide some measure of equality of opportunity for student and professional mothers to continue their studies and professional activities. Yet, of the few pre-school institutions that exist, (seventeen in the whole of NSW) most are not a government responsibility at all, but are, in the main, conducted by semi-charitable bodies or are profit-making establishments.

The further training of children in public school kindergartens is seriously hampered by the inadequacy of kindergarten buildings and staff. It should be an automatic matter for the child to proceed to kindergarten when he or she reaches the appropriate age. Yet, in fact, in a number of States, every year, when school opens, many children are excluded because of congestion, and their normal development, both social and educational, is impeded.

The situation is further aggravated by the type of building in which many children are taught — dingy, outmoded, and with little of the graciousness that should be part of the child’s everyday life.

Even more destructive of educational atmosphere, and productive of antisocial behaviour, are the “temporary” and makeshift structures that, in practically all States, are becoming a permanent feature of the system — church halls, show-ground pavilions, disused factories, school corridors, weathersheds and the like. At the beginning of 1959, the Victorian Teachers’ Union estimated that there were over 30 secondary schools, with a total of over 5,000 pupils, in temporary accommodation. The Melbourne press, recently (May 1959), gave publicity to Norwood High School, consisting of two drill halls, each containing three classes, not separated from each other by partitions.

Furthermore, in many schools in all States, playing areas are totally inadequate, and in some, congestion is so great that it is necessary for the children’s safety to forbid running or playing altogether.

Washing facilities are often non-existent, and luncheon arrangements, frequently, of the most primitive kind.

The anti-social effect on children who spend most or all of their school lives in such conditions is not hard to imagine.

Even where some of the worst of these conditions have disappeared, as in the fine new high schools constructed in NSW during recent years, the basic problems of overcrowding, oversized classes and inadequate staffs persist. Most of these schools, too, are lacking in a gymnasium, assembly hall, and suitable developed playing areas.

The physical health of children is certainly not improved and, in some of the worst instances, is actually endangered, by the unsatisfactory conditions, especially in temporary accommodation. This danger is increased in those States where schools are not covered by the Health Act regulations governing such matters as toilet accommodation and washing facilities.

The health of workers in industry is far more effectively safeguarded than that of their children.

Teachers are constantly devising special measures to meet the problems, but whilst conditions continue to deteriorate, their selfless efforts are successful only to a limited extent. Most affected is the handicapped child, the one who is timid, or has poor eyesight or hearing, or is slow to learn. Lost in a large class, he loses vital stages in the learning process, becomes more and more discouraged as he fails in class after class; frequently expresses his bewilderment by anti-social behaviour; and probably leaves school not only illiterate or semi-illiterate, but suffering permanent social and psychological damage.

Each year for the last 10 years the position has grown worse. In NSW for example, the total school enrollments increased from 339,000 in 1946 to 540,000 in 1957. Further increases of 20,000 per annum are officially anticipated. In the other States, the position is similar.

The teachers being trained yearly, are well below the number required to keep pace with this increase, so that conditions will clearly continue to deteriorate.

Furthermore, qualifications required of teachers are being reduced. Fewer university graduates are entering the secondary service than at any time in the last 10 years. The figures for NSW are:
1950 ... 178
1953 ... 136
1954 ... 121
1958 ... 100

As a result, young people with two years’ training and much lower educational qualifications are beginning to predominate in many secondary schools.

A recent survey by the N.S.W. Teachers’ Federation [1] showed that, in general, in three-year secondary schools and departments, university graduates comprised from one fourth to one tenth of the staffs. Some secondary Departments had no graduates at all. In Queensland, some teachers are being trained for secondary teaching in one-year “pressure cooker” courses which leave them quite unprepared for effective professional work. In addition, teachers are now being appointed in some N.S.W. schools with no professional training whatever.

In full State high schools conducting classes to matriculation, the percentage of graduate teachers is steadily falling.

Inadequate modern facilities and teaching aids add to the problem. Schools need film projectors, radio and TV receiving sets, duplicating equipment, pianos and other costly items not provided by the Education Department. Heavier and heavier burdens are falling upon parents’ organisations which are now being called upon not only to provide these facilities, but also to raise thousands of pounds towards playing grounds and in some cases school gymnasia, and swimming pools.

The present trend is, in practice, a form of special taxation, falling upon particular groups of parents.

In these conditions of oversized classes, undertrained teachers and inadequate accommodation and equipment, it is not surprising that a large number of children end their school life still virtually illiterate; and that many of those who succeed in passing public examinations through the skill and devotion of teachers, are quite unprepared for university education.

One by-product of the failure rate in the schools is the rash of “coaching colleges” that has broken out in recent years. Using high pressure salesmanship, many of these institutions prey on parents by creating anxieties and raising false hopes of success.

The pressure methods of coaching are frequently damaging to the child’s normal educational development.

In the universities, despite some improvement because of the Murray Committee report, a similar state of affairs prevails.

Classes are frequently such a size [2] that the lecturer needs to use a microphone to be heard by his students; equipment and facilities are so inadequate that Professor Messel (of the Physics Department, Sydney University) , and others, are constantly appealing to private industry to make the donations required to overcome the lag. As with teachers. an undue amount of time is spent in raising finance to the detriment of teaching and research. Naturally, private industry when it does provide financial assistance demands a voice in policy matters. The result is increased subordination of education to the requirements of monopoly interests.

Furthermore, despite some improvements by way of the Commonwealth scholarship scheme and special research scholarships, there is no satisfactory overall plan to ensure that the maximum number of the most talented students are available for training in specialised research.

All too frequently, the parents’ financial position rather than the students’ ability determines the personnel of University classes, and of students proceeding to advanced studies.

As to teaching staff, the personal political opinions of an applicant for a University post are often more significant in securing his appointment than his professional standing. There are a number of cases of the most suitable candidate having been chosen by a selection committee, and then refused appointment on the grounds that at some time in his life he had held left-wing opinions.

Such a policy, apart from muzzling the free interchange of opinion that is the essence of true scholarship, places a premium on second-rate ability and conformity to conventional opinion.

The combination of all these elements has resulted in a disastrous failure rate at University examinations. [3]

It is a fact that most Australian children and youth are not receiving the education required to fit them for life in the present age.

Nor will they receive such education unless in the first instance the material requirements are met by the expenditure of literally hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, which can come from one source only Federal revenue.

Putting First Things Last

Recently, the Prime Minister, when asked in Federal Parliament to extend the Commonwealth scholarship scheme to high schools, to enable a greater number of talented young people to proceed to secondary technical, and university education, refused the request. If this were done, he said, too many pupils would matriculate, the universities would be incapable of taking the increased enrolment.

At the same time, whilst, as this shows, it is national policy to prevent the maximum number of young people from receiving higher education, the expenditure of public revenue continues to follow the pattern disclosed in the 1955-6 figures.

Total Revenue (State and Federal) Total Expenditure on Education Expenditure on Defence

£1,236 million £87 million (7%) £190 million (15.3%)

Per capita taxation this year was £118/6/7. Per capita expenditure on education was £9/8/-. Total national income was £4,312 millions. Of this, expenditure on education accounted for 2%.

Since 1950, some £1,500 million has been spent on armaments and war preparations — with little or nothing to show for it. Had even one-third of this amount been diverted to education, including technical training, the material difficulties would, by now, be on the way to being solved.

As it is, public education is in a worse condition, when related to the task it is called on to perform, than it has ever been. [4]

In an age when labour productivity is far greater than ever before in history; when national income and profits of industry are at an all-time high, it is not unreasonable to ask that the education of children should be better, not worse than in past periods.

The material needs can be met by:

• Ensuring an increased number of more suitably built and equipped school. buildings.

• The ending of temporary accommodation.

• More teachers, additional teachers’ colleges.

• Class sizes ‘not exceeding 30 in junior classes, 20 in senior classes.

• Improved equipment and teaching aids.

• Remedial classes not exceeding 12 in number, taught by specially trained teachers.

• Increased university and technical college staff with decreases in size of classes.

• Provision of up to date equipment and facilities for university teaching.

• A very large increase in Commonwealth scholarships and in training in research.

The possibility of achieving any, or all, of this programme depends on a special large-scale financial grant by the Federal government, and increased regular provision for educational needs both by annual Federal special grants, and increased State government allocations. Unless these steps are taken, the crisis must inevitably grow worse.

These issues need to become part of the lifeblood of policy of the whole labour and progressive movement if they are to be realised.

Delinquency

The damage being done to youth is most clearly seen in the growing numbers of delinquents. Not only is there an increase in the numbers of young people who reach the juvenile courts, but an increase, also, in the percentage.

The causes are many, but one of the most obvious is the sense of insecurity and instability which grows out of the social system. Some young people are insecure because of family division, poverty, or similar causes. But underlying all of this is the insecurity that flows from a social system in which parents face the future with apprehension or anxiety because they never know when their economic position will be undermined by illness or unemployment. Furthermore, the development of large monopoly industry over which working people have no influence or control, creates, in many, a feeling of social helplessness and irresponsibility. To this should be added the cynicism that so frequently accompanies the realisation by youth, in the age of monopoly capital and atomic warfare, of the contrast between the ethics as taught in school and the realities of life in capitalist society.

Even children observe something of the contradiction between ethical theory and the practice of nuclear war. The conflict between the high values attributed in school life and teaching to the virtues of co-operation and service, and the hard facts of the pursuit of individual success and wealth, as the real purpose of life under capitalism, creates the conditions for a cynical disillusionment amongst many young people.

The shallow, philistine view of life that interprets success exclusively in terms of the individual acquisition of material wealth, unrelated to social or moral values, undoubtedly penetrates deeply into the lives of young people, expressing itself both in the hysterical ecstasy of adulation of the Johnny Rays and the Elvis Presleys, and the search for spiritual refreshment from evangelists such as Dr. Billy Graham: in both cases the basic drive is to seek escape from the drabness and lack of purpose that surround the lives of so many young people, and to identify themselves with a successful “hero”.

The excitement and false glamour of driving a stolen car or performing some other anti-social act arises from the same basic causes, and is given further incentive by the absence of community planning and facilities for normal youth development.

Conditions in many schools, already described, are themselves a factor in delinquency. The unsatisfactory educational experience of so many children, the development of anti-social traits, which over-loaded teachers have frequently neither the time nor the opportunity to diagnose and assist to correct, contribute directly to the growth of delinquency.

This is borne out by the growing number of teachers and parents who, in theory, are firmly opposed to corporal punishment as a disciplinary method, but who, influenced by growing delinquency, are advocating its extension.

Such proposals, attacking the effect rather than the cause, are a counsel of despair, but they indicate the gravity of the problem in our schools, and the extent to which unsatisfactory conditions are creating both delinquency and a feeling of desperation, amongst those subjected to its full impact.

There are further problems of housing, resulting in many thousands of young people having no adequate social life in the home; there are also the effects on youth of the constant menace of atomic war, the demoralising influence of many of the programmes on TV, radio and film, and of “comic books” and the absence of planned youth activity for leisure hours.

In the collective life of the U.S.S.R., where there is a network of cultural establishments, youth clubs and the like, and where the emphasis in publicity is upon peaceful coexistence, and a peaceful future for mankind based upon international cooperation and on working class action and community of interest, there is very little of the hysteria and unbalance that is so marked a feature of life in the capitalist world.

One immediate demand that needs to be raised is for the adequate provision of facilities — especially supervised playcentres and youth clubs, all the more because so many mothers as well as fathers have been compelled by economic pressure to seek employment in industry. Whilst the provision of such amenities will not solve the problem, it will help to promote a more stable background for the lives of many young people, and offset some of the anti-social influences flowing from the conditions tinder which so many of them live.