Australian Educational Structures in the Early 20th Century - Essay Example

To what extent did Australian educational structures determine girls’ and boys’ life choices in the early 20th century? In the 20th century education for little children aged six to thirteen in Australia was free and compulsory. Due to effects of the long depression of the economy, apart from Western Australia, was in bad shape financially. However, there were many schools and pupils. There were 9,353 schools with a total number of 887,137 pupils. Most of these were one-teacher schools with a capacity of 10 to 30 pupils. Schools opened for a minimum of 220 days every year, which was considered high for a society which was non-industrial. “The Roman Catholic parish schools, which had been established in the 1880s, were much more successful in having consistent attendance of pupils, having 81% of their students attend school compared with a lesser average of 70% attendance of pupils in the government schools.”(Harrington, 2008, p. 32) From the time a colony was in effect, schools instructed differently for girls and boys. These differences in provision were an explicit form of education. The girls’ orphan school was one of the first schools to be founded to train girls in management of the home .There was another school called the ladies school tradition that was established in early 20th century”(Bassett, 1963, p. 123). During the early and middle 20th century, there were also several other schools that were established which offered different education syllabus for boys and girls. There were also some secondary schools that remained single sex for the better part of the 20th century. The number of teachers working in Australian schools was 22, 213 in 1901.Most of the teachers were working under the state education department. “About two thirds of the school teachers were women and girls. Most of the school teachers did not train at a teachers’ college. They had instead acquired certification from the state after being pupil teacher apprentices.” (Monroe, 1911, p. 45) Many girls noticed this and had aspirations to become school teachers, being that women or girls dominated this field. A pupil could apply to be a pupil teacher at thirteen years of age. Sometimes, fifteen year old girls would be put in charge, although temporarily, in a class of about one hundred pupils about their own age. In the early 20th century, both boys and girls were trained on the basic subjects. The girls spent extra eighty minutes of the day learning things such as; knitting, sewing and darning. This is because the girls were more of home makers. Once they had a family, they were expected to sew clothes for their families, repair the torn clothes and knit sweaters for their family members. They were being prepared for the roles that were expected of a woman in the 20th century. The boys on the other hand used this extra minutes to obtain instruction on various fields such as; geography, geometry and arithmetic. As a result of this knowledge, they had aspirations of becoming doctors, soldiers, miners, mechanics, engineers, scientists etc. It is important to note that during the early 20th century, gender roles were very different between men and women. Men basically provided income for the family while women stayed home and were mostly homemakers, caretakers, nurse maids and midwives. The housework was very labor intensive due to the fact that electrical appliances were not available. This situation made the women almost entirely be involved only in activities in the home and family. Most Australian girls married when they were at the age of eighteen. In the 20th century, girls could get married from when they were fourteen years of age. The school days started with the teacher looking at the pupil’s faces and hands to see if they had been washed. The teachers also did a check up to ensure that they had combed their hair, that their clothes were neat and were darned where it was necessary. This inspection helped the pupils be neat and well organized later in their lives. This training enabled them to be individuals, who were; punctual, orderly decent and courteous in their dealings with other people. The school system was in that parents could instill discipline in the students. There were rules governing how the pupils were supposed to come into the room, sit on the chairs, bow to the teacher, sit when listening to the teacher, hold a pen, and the hand that was to be used when writing. Rules governed how children were to enter the room, bow to the teacher, sit down on the benches, sit when reading what was on the blackboard, sit when writing, hold their pens, the position of their writing pads, and which hand was to be used for writing and which to point to the words being copied.. These rules were set in place so that the girls and boys would be disciplined even in their life after school. The learning was done by rote. The boys and girls learnt how to repeat their tables, the capital cities in the world and poems which were in parrot fashion. There was time to play .It was included in the curriculum because it was deemed to assist with discipline and also helped the boys and girls develop the virtues of obedience, self restraint and self denial. The general observation however was that the pupils were disorganized in their play and thus learnt nothing from it. “Cricket and rounder’s was an approved form of play but marbles were regarded as a waste of time. Gymnastics were nonexistent because teachers lacked the relevant skill and also the schools lacked the equipment that would have been required for gymnastics. Later in the 20th century, high school education was made free. There were improvements in the subjects and the courses offered were extended for four more years. The courses were packaged with the students in mind. For boys, technical courses for industrial work, and commercial courses for the business careers. For girls, domestic courses for management of a home and other courses for professional, higher education. Boys were generally thought of to be better than girls in the field of mathematics, technology and the physical sciences. In the education system of the 20th century, it was clear that there was gender segmentation in the education system. “ A common justification for this is that girls make their choices based in social relevance and personal interest while boys on the other hand, are much more appealed by subjects that promise to deliver vocational dividends at the expense of other skills that they may possess. In the 20th century there was gender stereotyping in schools. Girls and boys learnt every day that they were separated in their attributes and behaviors and adopted these ideas to envision futures for them. Throughout the 20th century, feminists campaigned for the awareness of gender inequity in schools. “The feminists who did so relied on the platform of social justice-which stated that both boys and girls have the right to equal access and equal participation within the Australian education system. These issues of equal access for both genders forced the governments to develop policies to promote gender equity in school. From the 1970s there have been several state and national policies concerning girl education such as, The National Policy for the Education of Girls in Australian Schools. It was this feminist movement that made girls realizes that there were other options they could pursue other than the conventional role of mother and wife. Many women started to develop careers that were earlier thought to be male dominated fields. Other girls combined both roles and achieved altering levels of Success. Some women chose to pursue career alone while others chose the conventional path of home maker or professions like nursing or teaching. Initially, concern was focused on ways to improve girl’s educational experience but later on in the 20th century there was an increasing concern for boys as well. The views expressed regarding both genders can be summarized as follows; In the early 1970 girls were labeled as a minority and were less represented than the boys. They were seen to experience discrimination and their role was to marry and bear children. They were not expected to pursue careers because this would disrupt their biological function. In the early 1980s and late1970s girls were presumed to be different to boys. In the 1980s girls are thought to be okay that is, girls just had different learning styles .In the early1990s the girls were perceived to be just girls that is, they could do things that they boys did too e.g. actively transform and construct multiple variables or subjectivities. The girls’ voices were heard and their plight was heard after which they were included in the creation of more policies. In the late1990s there were gender equity reforms created in the education sector, and the boys needed more attention because they were poor communicators and were gradually being overtaken by the girls. The girls in the 1990s were now performing better than boys and getting into universities in higher numbers than the boys. In conclusion, it was realized that just as girls should be recognized as high achievers and active participants in the education system, boys too benefit from having a greater recognition having their education needs being more understood. In the late 20th century the topic of the less disadvantaged sex became highly debatable in the education quarters. Some viewed that its usefulness was spent and its functions limited. However the feminists throughout the 20th century played a significant role in improving girls learning experience and educational outcomes. This is because the girls were empowered to come out of the kitchen and venture into more male dominated fields such as science ,technology business etc. The girls were thus able to earn their own income and become independent in their own financial resources just as the boys were. REFERENCES Harrington, Marilyn, Preschool education in Australia. Parliamentary Library, 2008 Reid, Alan, The Redefinition of Public Education: The Australian Education Union,1999 Bassett, G. W ", The pattern of Australian Culture, Oxford University Press, Melbourne,1963 Monroe, P ,A Cyclopedia of Education, Macmillan, New York, 1911, pp. 301-02 Teese, R. 1989, Gender and Class in the Transformation of the Public High School in Melbourne 1946 to 1985", Vol.29, No.2, 1989, pp. 237-259. Austin, A.G & Selleck, R.J.W ,The Australian government School,1830 1914.Melbourne:Pitman ,(1975) Commonwealth schools commission, Girls Schools and society.Canberra,1975 Alexander Thom &Dublin, Commission of National education, Reading Book For The Use Of Female Schools: Commissioners of National Education,Ireland,1866 pp 59-61 Read More