Teacher Preparation in Australia

History, Policy and Future Directions

Thomas O'Donoghue, Keith Moore

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781787439740
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica comparata

Teacher policy and practice in Australia has evolved substantially from the development of the first colony in 1788 to the present. This book traces the history of teacher preparation through five inter-related phases; the unregulated phase, the apprenticeship phase, the ascendancy of the Teachers Colleges, the ascendancy of the Colleges of Advanced Education, and the university dominated phase from 1989 to the present day. While the focus is primarily on preparation to teach in primary and secondary schools, this important text also sheds light on teacher preparation for vocational education and at kindergarten level. The rich historical overview explores both the state and private sector together with that of the Christian Churches. Furthermore, research is not merely restricted just to initial teacher preparation; continuing professional development is also considered. With its comparative outlook, this book will prove an invaluable resource for not only Australian educational leaders, historians and policy makers, but also their counterparts internationally. The authors provide an exposition which will be used by teacher educators in many parts of the world to sharpen their perceptions of their own situations through comparison and contrast, to provoke ideas for critical discussion, and to stimulate them to come to an understanding of the importance of considering contemporary developments within their wider historical contexts.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Currently the Australian university sector almost has a monopoly in the provision of courses and programmes for the initial preparation of teachers across the nation. Furthermore, nearly all of the universities are involved in the enterprise, along with also being involved in offering professional development courses for practising teachers, and masters’-and doctorate-level courses in ‘education studies’. The main emphasis within the courses for the initial preparation of teachers in each of the nation’s States and Territories is on creating professionals for the early childhood, primary and secondary school sectors. Enrolled students can be prepared as ‘generalist’ teachers and can specialise in specific aspects of curriculum and pedagogy. As is illustrated in this book, however, the general pattern depicted above is a relatively recent one when considered over the wider course of the history of education in Australia.

The remainder of the present chapter sketches out the broad historical background within which the focus of this book on the history of teacher preparation in Australia is considered. It opens with a brief overview of arguments that led to engagement in the research project upon which it is based. Especially with the international reader in mind, the next part provides a very general account of the historical evolution of Australian society. An equally brief overview of the historical development of education in Australia and of the historical periods that give structure to the remaining chapters follows.

The Case for Writing this Book

A major factor influencing the decision to engage in the research project upon which this book is based was an acute awareness of the extent to which teacher preparation is currently one of the most pressing and topical issues in the field of education internationally.¹ In particular, there is a strong interest in such matters as how teachers should be prepared, what the content of their programmes of preparation should be, how their effectiveness should be assessed, and what the role of the ‘good’ teacher should be in society.² These and other questions are very much to the fore in policy agendas around the world, including in Australia. In general, also, Australia follows the pattern in certain other countries, where teacher preparation is seen as being a vital tool in the building of the nation economically. To some extent, this perspective is driven by international education ‘league tables’ developed from national results yielded through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)³ and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science’⁴ studies. Cognisance of this alerts one to the need to generate an understanding of how the current situation regarding teacher preparation in many countries can be both understood and located in relation to international influences and agreements. Equally, it alerts one to the importance of considering national policies and processes of reception at the national and local levels. To this end, it is particularly important to consider a nation’s historical experiences as these can have as much of an influence on such policies and processes of reception, including in teacher preparation, as can transnational processes.⁵

Keeping the argument outlined so far uppermost in mind, attention was paid when writing the book to the views of those who see a move towards a supranational order in teacher preparation.⁶ At the same time, cognisance was also taken of the view that countries and systems are, and have been, very much in competition with each other in education performance; a situation which currently places teacher preparation at the nation state level to the forefront in the global ‘battle’ in education. Also, it is important not to overestimate the current role of international organisations. Even the European Union, which has taken quite an interest in teacher preparation, has not been overly keen to be involved in the field of its member States have not reached consensus on what school education is about, on the priorities for curriculum and on the skills and qualities required to be a teacher.⁷ Furthermore, its constitutional position limits it to assisting member States in their attempts to improve quality in the area of education, rather than allowing it to engage in direct involvement.⁸

Overall, then, this book, based on the arguments offered above, provides a comprehensive overview on the history of teacher preparation in Australia as a counterbalance to those who embrace presentism, namely, the process that ignores continuities, discontinuities and ruptures with the past. It should allow educators in Australia to establish connections between the past and the present which could inform discussions about possible future directions. It is also a book that should be of interest not only to historians and policy makers within the nation, but also to their counterparts internationally, as well as to comparative educationists. Furthermore, it provides an exposition that can be drawn upon by those involved in teacher preparation in other parts of the world to assist in sharpening their perceptions of their own situations through comparison and contrast, to provoke ideas for critical discussion and to stimulate them to come to an understanding of the importance of considering contemporary developments within their wider historical contexts. The hope also is that it is a book that will act as a general introduction to the history of all sectors of the education system in Australia.

The arguments outlined so far are in harmony with those outlined by Placier et al.⁹ on the utilitarian value in studying the history of all aspects of education in relation to individual nation States. Firstly, they state, such study can help to explain the current situation, ‘especially through illuminating how decisions in the past may have institutionalised patterns of belief and practice that impede change today’.¹⁰ Secondly, they hold, ‘it may provide evidence of macro-micro linkages across time and sites that locate a phenomenon in broader structural, cultural, demographic and/or economic contexts’.¹¹ Specifically in relation to teacher preparation, this means that the historical study of the field may reveal how it has been, and continues to be, influenced by provincial, national and international trends. Thirdly, according to Placier et al., history may demonstrate that current reforms in teacher preparation may not be entirely new. At the same time, as they explain, revising an old policy or practice is rarely a process of rote repetition. Rather, ‘an old idea may be transformed in a new social context, and what may sound like the “same” phenomenon may play out differently in different nations’.¹²

Before concluding this introduction, it is apposite to point out that related works on the history of education in Australia have been published and that these were drawn upon as valuable secondary source material when engaging in the project upon which this book is based.¹³ In particular, a multitude of works on individual teacher educators¹⁴ and on developments that took place in individual institutions¹⁵ and during relatively narrow time periods are available.¹⁶ Also, a valuable overview of the history of teacher preparation across the nation has been produced by Aspland.¹⁷ Equally, works like that of Selleck¹⁸ on the history of Melbourne University are insightful in relation to how the curriculum for teacher preparation in the academy was located in relation to other fields of study. Among a number of related monographs are Gardiner, O’Donoghue and O’Neill’s Constructing Education as a Liberal Art and as Teacher Preparation at Five Western Australian Universities: An Historical Analysis¹⁹ and May et al.’s Claiming a Voice: The First Thirty-five Years of the Australian Teacher Education Association.²⁰ No synoptic exposition like that in this book, however, has been available since Hyams published his pioneering work, Teacher Preparation in Australia: A History of its Development from 1850 to 1950 back in 1975.²¹

Finally, this is not a study of what is sometimes termed ‘the interactive curriculum’, namely the interactions that place in classrooms, lecture theatres and other learning sites, and how the curriculum for teacher preparation was mediated by lecturers and students. Such a focus, it is held, is equally important work. From the outset, however, it was deemed that it could only be addressed in a very general way in this book and that it is an area regarding which a separate project should be undertaken at another time.

The Historical Evolution of Australian Society

It is not certain when people first occupied Australia, but the indications are that it was at least 50,000 years ago. By the time of European settlement, the Aboriginal population had formed different communities spread across the continent, some of whom had developed trade and cultural links with Asian communities.²² While the Dutch were the first Europeans to encounter the Australian coast (in 1606), the earliest permanent European settlers were the British, motivated by the presence of other European powers in the area and by a desire for new colonies to substitute for those lost in North America.²³ The colonists considered that the entire continent was terra nullius (uninhabited by humans) and they used this stance to acquire whatever they wanted.

By the late 1700s, Britain needed a penal colony to which it could transport the growing proportion of its population deemed undesirable. Australia was seen to provide a good solution. The first of the penal colonies, that of New South W...