In September 1889, Acting Head Teacher Rowe was provided with a handful of licensed teachers and pupil teachers to cope with the anticipated 300 enrolments at Princes Hill. In February 1890, Acting Head Teacher Moore’s request for another pupil teacher was refused: the school would not get extra staff, he was informed, until the student body numbered 300.1 The Department ignored the fact that enrolments at Princes Hill already exceeded that level. Russell, Robinson, Skewes, Sebire, Mylrea, Bryant, Hart and the Head Teachers who followed were all bedevilled by the responsibility of maintaining adequate staff levels: too few teachers were allocated by the Department, there was daily absenteeism, replacements were often inadequate or inexperienced. Too often, there were mass departures of both qualified qualified teachers and trainees.2 The problem of staff turnover was exacerbated by the Education Department’s insistence that female teachers resign when they married. As a result, many experienced and able teachers were lost to the service just as they were coming into their prime.
All the Head Teachers realised the harm that inadequate staff numbers and the high turnover of teachers were causing the school. Overcrowded classrooms, overstretched staff and regular absenteeism were imposing double work67 loads on the remaining teachers. Students’ work was disrupted by the high turnover of staff. The system of promotion required teachers gaining advancement to change schools, institutionalising a high turnover of the best teachers.53
Compelled to employ teachers quickly, in the 1870s the Department hired a hotchpotch of talent, with disparate levels of education, qualifications qualifications and expertise.‘1In 4 In an effort to improve standards and introduce some degree of order, in 1873 the Department directed that only teachers with a ‘Certificate ‘Certificate of Competency’ could teach in State schools. Those holding a ‘Licence to Teach’ could assist, or could take appointments to one-teacher country schools. Teachers without the necessary qualifications were required to present for examination. The Public Servants Act of 1883 confirmed teachers’ status as public servants and regulated their conditions of classification, appointment, salary and promotion. Three university subjects plus a qualification in education were prerequisite for promotion to the top levels. Pupil teachers were apprenticed to Head Teachers as trainee teachers.5
Recruitments, however, were never adequate. In 1872, 2416 teachers were employed in 1049 schools to teach 136,055 enrolled students (with an average attendance of 68,456). On average, this was two teachers per school, and fifty-six students per teacher. By 1890, the numbers of schools, teachers and students had doubled, but the ratio remained constant: 4710 teachers, 2170 schools and 250,097 enrolments (with average attendance 133,768). By 1909-10, there were 2036 schools, 4957 teachers, and 235,042 enrolments (average attendance 145,968). In 1940, just after the outbreak of the Second World War, 7271 teachers were employed at 2569 schools to teach 217,941 pupils (average attendance 151,674). By 1951, the number of schools had dropped to 1949 and teacher numbers had remained steady at 7271, while the primary school enrolments had increased to 233,026 (average attendance 173,316).5 6 The averages are distorted by the variations in the size of schools, particularly the large number of one teacher rural schools. At large inner-suburban schools, the actual ratios of students per teacher were well above the averages. While rapidly increasing enrolments maintained acute strain on teacher numbers, the Department could not recruit enough teachers to match the demand.7
Two of the measures that the Department took to cope with the pressure were illustrated in 1908, when Skewes’ request for extra staff to accommodate his 978 students was refused. First, when estimating staff requirements and allocations at each school, the Department ignored net attendance figures in favour of the lower average attendances figures. Accordingly, the school’s total enrolment figure of 978 scholars was determined as being between 830 and 870 average attendance. The allocation of twenty teachers, therefore, was considered adequate. Secondly, the Department began relying on junior teachers to alleviate the problem of teacher shortage, and used them to bear a larger brunt of teaching loads. In 1908, Princes Hill’s staff of twenty comprised eight fully qualified teachers; the remainder were junior teachers. All but two of these had been allocated full responsibility for a class.8
This last measure dated from the nineteenth century. In 1884, 1076 of the 2563 State school teachers were student teachers.9 Between 1889 and 1898, pressed by the economic depression, the Department pensioned off older teachers in favour of cheaper pupil teachers. The number of unqualified unqualified pupil teachers conducting classes rose from 26 per cent to 38 per cent.15 10 The government also closed down the Teachers College. In 1904, only 1039 of the 2702 teachers employed by the Department were fully trained; the remaining 1663 were pupil teachers.11 In the twentieth century, the two World Wars and the 1930s depression caused further strains. Of the 1500 male teachers employed by the Department in 1914, 750 volunteered for military service. Of these, 146 did not return. As an Argus correspondent noted, the young teachers were recent graduates trained according to the latest methods. They were hard to replace.12
The outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939 again denuded Australia of its young men and women. Although teachers were exempted from military service, 1726 of them enlisted (approximately one-third of 1 the Department’s personnel). This caused severe depletion in the Department, aggravating the shortages left by the depression. Those who went from Princes Hill in 1941 69 included J. Robertson, who enlisted in the RAAF, and Charles Nora, who joined the Home Defence Force.15 13 In 1942, R. Miller and C. McDonald also applied for leave to enlist.14
The Department adopted a variety of tactics to ease the effects of the acute teacher shortage. During the First World War, Tate used third-year diploma students from the Teachers College to fill fill the gaps.15 During the Second World War, retired teachers and women who had been compelled to leave teaching because of marriage were recalled into service. The proportion of female students enrolled at the College changed markedly from having 121 males to 193 females in 1930, by 1943 the College had 45 males to 396 females.15 16 College students and sewing mistresses were sent to rural schools as temporary head teachers. If a school could not be staffed, children were provided with a travelling allowance to attend another school nearby.17 In 1943, McDonald was told he had to remain at Princes Hill until his call-up. Next year, C. Harding’s request to be released from the Department to join the RAAF was refused.18
Generally, Princes Hill coped without devastating difficultiesdifficulties. Severe pressure came after the school’s elevation to Central School status, when the need for secondary teachers could not be met. Refusing Hart’s application for more staff in February 1944, the Department instructed that the school’s workload be distributed among the current staff: thirty-two periods per week, Hart was informed, was the average load of secondary teachers.19
15 The long-term solution was recruiting more young men and women and giving them a proper training as teachers. The system of pupil-teacher apprenticeship used between 1872 and 1906 was a gruelling and iniquitous form of sweated 1abourlabour.2" 20 Although vacant pupil teacher positions at each school were advertised in the newspapers, more often the successful applicants were the better graduates of that school. Louise Kelly, appointed pupil teacher at Princes Hill in February 1890, was an early graduate of Princes Hill. Having completed grade 6, she applied for the position of pupil teacher there and was placed into the fourth grade.21
Candidates were generally between 13 and 15 when they sat for the pupil-teacher examinations, which were organised by the Head Teacher and supervised by the District Inspector. In July 1892, sixteen applicants qualified for the positions of pupil teacher at Princes Hill after sitting for examinations conducted by Robinson. The subjects in which they were tested were grammar, parsing of sentences, etymology, the identification of historical events, calculation and mental arithmetic, creative writing, prose and poetry, geography, reading, writing, diction and spelling.22 Successful candidates were required to supply health certificates.
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