On 22 September 1989, the Princes Hill Schools celebrated their centenary. Since their foundation, the schools have been confronted with many obstacles. In 1989, Victorian education remains in a state of flux, and new challenges confront the Princes Hill schools.
During the 1970s, the Education Department devolved its power to an unprecedented extent, placing responsibility for curriculum development and administration onto individual schools. These changes were welcomed at Princes Hill, as they strengthened the ties that the schools had already established with parents and the neighbourhood community. In the late 1980s, however, the Department is placing education under a tighter rein, demanding more accountability for administration, curriculum development and school philosophy. Despite these changes, parents’ involvement remains crucial, whether it be in laying out school ideals or in their more mundane, traditional role as fundraisers. Although the Education Department has promised $250,000 to refurbish the Pigdon Street School, it will still be up to parents and teachers to find money for educational innovations, such as the proposed music studio for the secondary college. And another battle is looming. Although the secondary college successfully thwarted the Education Department’s school amalgamation proposals in 1987, the issue is being raised again by the current Minister for Education, Mrs Kirner.
Teachers’ accountability has also become an issue. The Education Department is subjecting teachers to a closer time discipline. Many teachers resent this implicit coercion, particularly those who have been in the habit of investing private time in their profession. There is also a growing despondency among teachers. Until the mid-1970s, teaching offered both job security and opportunities for promotion. Today, it is hard for teachers to see teaching as a lifelong career. They face the prospect of many years in the classroom, more responsibilities and more demands on their time.
As inner suburban schools, the Princes Hill Schools have welcomed many students of diverse class and ethnic backgrounds. Demographically, the schools are expected to remain broad in character; they are also likely to have large numbers of students. Projected enrolments for Pigdon Street in the 1990s are over 500, whereas other schools in the area anticipate enrolments of less than 200. The Princes Hill Schools are moving in step with the Department’s new priorities, emphasising literacy and numeracy, applying new technologies to (replace ‘chalk and talk’, and attempting to dismantle gender stereotyping.
In the terms of the schools’ philosophy, education is designed to equip students with lifelong skills for learning, work and leisure. Yet the philosophy that students should take responsibility for making their own choices, and then bear the consequences, has few counterparts in the society outside. Year 12 students remain unclear about their future, except for a vague hope to continue into tertiary education. For reasons that have little to do with the schools’ own policies or the standard of education they offer, their students now face far more daunting prospects than their predecessors did twenty years ago.