After World War II, with the financial assets of exclusive income-taxing power, the federal (Commonwealth of Australia) government played an increasing role in educational development, particularly at the tertiary level. Through the States Grants Act in 1951, the Murray Report in 1957, the Martin Report in 1964, the Karmel Report in 1973, and the 1988 Policy Statement on higher education, the federal government moved into the planning as well as the funding of postsecondary education concurrently with the states. After four decades of rapid expansion in higher education, the government set a course toward a unified national system at the tertiary level. The government negotiated directly with higher education institutions, without the traditional buffer of consultative councils, and moved directly to amalgamate institutions and otherwise to rationalize the system. The organizational rationale was based on the contribution of higher education to the national economic interest, and strategies linked higher education to the training needs of the economy. System integrity, efficiency and output measures, and indications of privatization (a private university, tertiary fees, sale of educational services) characterized the political thrust. The Commonwealth Office of Education was established in 1945 to advise on financial assistance to the states and on educational matters generally, to act as a liaison agent among the states and between Australia and other countries, and to provide educational information and statistics. Renamed several times in subsequent decades, it brought together education and training policy with employment strategy at the national level.
About three-quarters of Australian schools were public. The remainder were made up of Roman Catholic schools (which constituted about 80 percent of the nonpublic schools) and other private schools, many of which had considerable influence in the leadership of Australian society. The curriculum and syllabus for each program or course in the state schools was prescribed by the Department of Education, and nonpublic schools generally followed this standard. From 1965, significant government funding was provided to private schools. There was a resurgence of interest in and a consequent increase of influence from this sector again in later years.
Primary schools were normally of six years’ duration, to about age 12, though some schools retained the seventh year of the old pattern. Within primary schools, pupils were organized in grades and advanced by annual promotion. Secondary education was offered for five or six years, generally in comprehensive schools. The minimum school-leaving age was 15 (16 in Tasmania). From the 1950s to the mid-1970s, rapid growth occurred throughout the systems but especially at higher levels. The technical and further education (TAFE) sector had a singular influence, operating at upper secondary and tertiary levels and providing widespread nonformal activities. TAFE colleges enrolled about 700,000 students of school-leaving age annually and served the great majority of Australian tertiary students. Later moves improved cross-crediting between TAFE and other tertiary institutions.
From the 1970s, three educational goals emerged: the first emphasized equality, diversity, devolution, and participation; the second, national and social unity; the third, effective means of managing what had become, because of rapid growth, a huge and nearly ungovernable education sector. As a result, there were internal reforms in teaching practice, curriculum, school organization, teacher education, and methods of assessment.
The attempts to increase the number of students continuing education and to improve or expand programs to serve the whole population raised interest in system unification, including such issues as establishing common curricula and stronger Australian content, improving the transition from school to work, and providing equal opportunity for Aborigines, the disabled, and other groups designated as disadvantaged. The government later highlighted recognition of the contribution of Aboriginal cultures as well as of Australian studies. New Zealand
The religious and regional issues that fettered educational development in other countries of the British Commonwealth were basically settled in New Zealand when the decisions were made in the last quarter of the 19th century to provide wholly secular primary schools and administrative centralization. The major issue in the 20th century was the achievement of equal educational opportunity. Although New Zealand accepted the responsibility to educate each child—without racial, social, or narrowly intellectual restriction—to the limits of the child’s ability, the unification of the total system to this end proved quite difficult.
The Education Act of 1914 consolidated the changes that had taken place since 1877. In subsequent reform periods during the 1930s and after World War II, barriers to pupil progress through the system were removed or modified. In 1934 the school-leaving certificate examination was established on a broader basis than the university entrance examination, and in 1936 the proficiency examination governing secondary entrance was abolished. In 1944–45 three additional changes were made: the school-leaving age was raised to 15; a common core of early secondary studies—including English, social studies, general science, mathematics, physical education, and a craft or fine-arts subject—was established; and universities agreed to accept accredited school courses without further examination for university entrance. These actions illustrated a gradual but steady facilitation of access through an increasingly coordinated system. The recommendations of the Currie Commission (1962) and the provisions of the Education Act of 1964 continued this direction.
Starting in 1877, education was supervised and funded by a central Department of Education, which was headed politically by a minister and permanently by a director general. Administrative duties were generally handled locally, however. Secondary schools were administered by their own boards of governors and primary schools by elected regional boards of education. Universities received grants negotiated by the University Grants Committee, and grants for other tertiary institutions were administered by the Department of Education. Three regional offices and teams of primary and secondary inspectors linked the central Department of Education and the network of local authorities. Education was free until the age of 19 for qualified pupils. University tuition was also paid for successful students.
New Zealand children generally started school at the age of five and spent eight years in primary school. The secondary system developed through the growth of three separate kinds of schools: the district high school, which represented more or less a secondary “top” on a primary school; the independent, academic, one-sex secondary school proper; and the technical school, which took shape between 1900 and 1908. The isolated position of the fee-charging secondary schools of the 19th century was compromised by free-place legislation in 1903, and by 1914 they were brought into the state system, though retaining a good deal of their independent status. The district high schools remained in the primary system, but their incorporation in the secondary inspection scheme and in secondary teacher classification placed them clearly within that sector of school operation. The technical high school evolved into a general high school with technical bias. Through common departmental inspection, curriculum, and examination standards, and through the effect of the movement for more general postprimary provisions after 1945, the secondary schools increasingly approximated a single pattern.
At the end of the 11th year of schooling, students took the School Certificate examination, a general test that partially determined admittance to the upper secondary level (12th and 13th years). Youths qualifying for university entrance found that admission to professional schools was limited. Although the technical institutes and community colleges were expanded after 1970, demand continued to increase for these programs. Enrollment in teachers’ colleges was limited because of a declining school population.