The Development of a National System of Education in New South Wales

Abstract

THE DEVELOPMENT of supported systems of education in Australia was the outcome of conflicting constitutional, economic, and social policies in the nineteenth century. It is becoming obvious that Australian education needs to be reexamined in relation to the changing society in which it developed rather than as a separate institution. The period from 1830 to 1880 saw the influence of utilitarianismin an increasingly democratic form-condition the gestation of contemporary systems of public-supported and centrally administered primary and secondary education. The conflict of policies is measured in part by the intellectual history of Australian society and is reflected in the granting of responsible parliamentary government, elected on a wide franchise, to the colonies, which in turn instituted systems of primary education. The whole process of emerging state control is evident in the current confusion over the role of the state in providing education for a modemn complex and pluralist society. It is impossible to do justice to colonial affairs during the nineteenth century without recognizing the dominant influence of the English experience in political, economic, and social life. English liberal sentiment, without much concern for doctrine, gave direction to political debates in all the Australian colonies. (i) One finds in the generally derivative nature of Australian society the widespread influence of English ideas and institutional forms. The ideas and in-