The Reformation of Education in N.S.W.: The 1990 Education Reform Act
Geoffrey Riordan
&
Sam Weller
School of Education
Macquarie University
Paper Presented at the AARE Conference
December 4 - 7, 2000
Sydney
AARE Reference RIO00358
The Education Reform Act (1990) was the most significant education legislation in New South Wales in the 20th century. Prior to its assent on 1 June 1990 school education in N.S.W. had been provided under the structures and direction of a legislative framework developed 110 years earlier by Henry Parkes and William Wilkins in their Public Instruction Act (1880). The 19th century Act had been amended on numerous occasions, the last of which was in 1987. Despite these numerous amendments-many of which were notable in regard to specific matters such as the introduction of the Wyndham Scheme in the 1961 amendments-the Act continued until 1990 to impose a structure grounded in a view of society, schooling, parents and the role of the state that reflected 19th century colonial thinking. To the extent that the 1990 legislation marks the beginning of a post-colonial approach to the provision of schooling in Australia's most populous State, it deserves close study. In addition to scrutiny of its technical detail, attention should also be directed at its construction and passage through parliament as this may well reveal insights into power and policy-making in practice. Further, such a study is warranted for the ways in which the fundamental dilemmas of the provision of schooling-how a civil state deals with difference, what gets taught and who should decide and so on-were understood and settled at a particular historical time. Given the infrequency with which education legislation has been reviewed, negotiated and redrafted in its entirity, the settlement of these issues in 1990 is likely to determine the provision of schooling in N.S.W. well into the 21st century. The longevity of the provisions of the 1880 legislation was foreshadowed by Parkes himself in the following quote which, according to Morris (1969, p. 155) was directed by Parkes to his daughter:
I am on the eve of a great event in my public life, the magnitude of which slightly upsets my equilibrium. The Public Instruction Bill will finally pass tonight. . . . The . . . Bill was framed by myself without consulting anyone (except with Mr. Wilkins on matters of detail in school management) and it has passed through both houses without a single material alteration. The good fortune does not fall to the lot of many men to be acknowledged author of two great measures like the Public Schools Act of 1866 and the Public Instruction Act of 1880, to be in fact, the founder and moulder of the primary school system of a country. You must therefore pardon this little piece of private jubilation.
Dr Terry Metherell, the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs who brought the Education Reform Bill to the N.S.W. Parliament in early 1990, also seemed to have a clear sense of the historical significance of the Act and of his own place in history:
Chifley in his time was thought of as somewhat of an ogre, but now when we look back on Ben Chifley we reflect upon his statesmanship. People will eventually thank me for these reforms - this is a blueprint for education into the 21st century. (The Sunday Telegraph, April 1 1990, quoted in Gleeson, Allan & Wilkins, 1992, p. 37).
The second reading of the 1990 Education Reform Bill reveals, either explicitly or implicitly, the importance speakers from both sides of the N.S.W. Parliament attached to the proposed legislation. Few, if any, of the key players could have been in doubt about the historical significance of the educational changes under consideration. The very use of 'reform' in the title of the Bill, and opposition to the term from the Labor benches symbolised the watershed about to take place in N.S.W. school education.
The controversial environment created by two years of extensive and radical changes since the election of the Greiner Government in 1988, together with widespread and intensive public consultations surrounding three direction-setting reviews, ensured a heightened public interest in the passage of the Bill. All major educational stakeholders lobbied fiercely, especially as the Bill's passage through the Legislative Council was by no means certain. The parliamentary debates were clear evidence of the community's recognition of the significance of the Bill regarding the key issues facing N.S.W. education at a time of challenging economic, technological, social, and organisational changes.
In contrast to the lengthy and detailed debate in Parliament and the coverage the passage of the Act attracted in the media, there has been little scholarly attention directed at the contents, origins and outcomes of the Act. A recent search of the Australian Education Index (AEI) produced 34 "hits", eight of which referred to the N.S.W. legislation. There was one masters thesis (Alaba, 1992) that addressed the issue of certification of secondary schools in N.S.W. between 1912 and 1990. In this thesis mention is made of the 1990 Act in a postscript. There were two conference papers, one on the topic of rural education which made reference to the Principles of the 1990 Act and another comparing aspects of the 1988 English Act of the same name with the N.S.W. legislation (Krump, 1991). There was a document published by the Australian Education Union (AEU) critiquing the Scott Review (1989). The remaining four documents were published by either the Board of Studies or the Department of Education and were designed to provide information to schools about specific matters of curriculum or school organisation. Twenty-five of the 34 "hits" on the Australian Education Index pertained exclusively to the British Education Reform Act. The final "hit" was on an article dealing with the Kentucky Act of the same name and year!
To the best of our knowledge, the treatment of the Act (1990) in books, chapters and other works not included in the A.E.I. has also been minimal. Welch's (1996) Australian Education: Reform or Crisis? makes mention of the Act and some of the themes and issues of relevance to it. However his approach is to take a theme, such as devolution or the back-to- basics movement and examine the theme across a number of jurisdictions and policies. A possible reason that the Act, or for that matter, the Scott Review or the Carrick Report, barely rate a mention in Welch's book is that many of the arguments that Welch advances are difficult to sustain when one examines the detail of the contents and development of the Act. Barcan (1993) in his book on sociological theory and education in Australia since 1949 does make several references to Metherell and to the Reports which informed the Act (1990). Barcan's focus is national, and as such he attempts to produce a coherent account of education change across a broad historical period. Often a casualty of such an approach is detail, and unfortunately he occasionally gets superficial detail wrong, such as when he claims that the Premier Nick Greiner appointed Carrick to review school education in an attempt to mollify opposition to Metherell (p. 340). Barcan, when he does address the issues in and around the Act is also more intent on the attempted and by now largely unsuccessful changes to the Department, a matter less related to the Act than to the Scott Review (1990). In a later publication, despite the promise of its title, Barcan (1996) in his review of recent educational developments in Australia pays even less attention to the Act. Marginson (1993), despite featuring a photograph of an anti-Metherell protest on the front cover of his widely acclaimed Education and Public Policy in Australia, does not mention Metherell or the N.S.W. Act in the text!
None of this is particularly surprising. What tends to happen in policy texts and articles is that little attention is given to empirical study of the detail of specific policies or their contexts. Taylor, Rizvi, Lingard and Henry (1997, p. 40) suggest that this is particularly the case in Australian research: "It is interesting that within Australia . . . much critical policy work has tended to highlight at an abstract level the operation of the state without investigating actual operations at local sites." Taylor et al. attribute this to the state-centric nature of our political culture. We believe that there are other reasons for this neglect. Such studies are immensely time consuming and difficult. Ball (1990) attests to this when he notes in the first sentence of his introduction the difficulty of reporting the findings of his study. From an instrumental view, such studies are not attractive given the current situation in educational research in this country with its imperatives to gain external research funding and to publish. Publications are problematic, as there would appear to be a limited local audience for such work and an even smaller potential international readership.
But to return to our argument, to the extent that the Act has been mentioned in scholarly work, there has been a tendency in the literature to associate this Act - and the policies that informed it and continue to flow from it - with the global New Right/post-Fordist/economic rationalist policy ideology. While there are some benefits in this approach, it is, in our view, problematic on four counts. First it tends to over-simplify and thus misrepresent the contents of the policies being studied. Second, it tends to oversimplify and misconstrue the state. Third, it suggests a form of policy determinism that is not evident in our study to anything like the extent purported in the literature. Finally, it provides little more than an understanding of the ideological pedigree of a specific policy-albeit a partial one-from which there can be little clear direction for policy makers, those who implement policy, or the community at large to act on policy and change its shape and focus. Often what follows from an a priori policy study, one that takes ideology as a starting point and organizing construct, is a clever though largely ineffectual attack on the ideology itself. So we share Dale's concerns (e.g., 1994, 1997) regarding common analyses of education policy in western countries as we seek to understand local policy making. As Dale eloquently put it:
The fact that these core problems are permanently on the agenda of all western states provides a framework for comparison, although it does not mean that each state will interpret, address, or seek solutions to those problems in the same way. The core problems set limits to state actions, but they do not determine them wholly; the form of state activity cannot be read off from its functions. (Dale, 1997, p. 274)
This paper is the first of several publications planned to report the findings of a project that has examined in detail the development, contents and passage of the Act. This ongoing project comprises a detailed analysis of the Act and the documents that informed and flowed from it. In addition, the complete Hansard record of parliamentary debates and an equally extensive collection of media reports on the Metherell era have been consulted and are referred to in this paper. Finally, and most significantly, we have conducted interviews with 10 of the people who were most closely involved in the development and passage of the Act. This aspect of the study was informed by the approach taken by Ball (1990) in his study of the British Education Reform Act (1988). Like Ball, our interest has been in understanding the practical ways in which policies are constructed and how the confluence of interests, personalities and personal histories, the media, lobby groups, historical antagonisms, compromises, trade-offs and the like all interact to produce-at opportune historical moments, or "policy windows" as Kingdom (1984) has described them-major policy change. We concur with Ball's (1990) arguments regarding the importance of critical, empirical studies of major policies and the value of interviewing "elites" or "key players" in order to develop a detailed understanding of the policy. Analysis of interview transcripts has already revealed fascinating insights which, while not reported in this first paper, have informed the description of the key elements of the Act.
The purpose of this paper, then, is to begin to redress the neglect of this significant piece of legislation in the scholarly literature and to examine the ways in which fundamental constraints and dilemmas were negotiated and settled in N.S.W. in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This conference paper provides an introduction to the legislation by providing an overview of the N.S.W. Education Reform Act (1990) and an explication of its key features.
Context
An appreciation of the human, political, social, historical, and economic context is essential for an informed understanding of the legislation. We shall address these matters in detail in subsequent publications. Here, though, we will limit our attention to a brief description of the program of the Greiner Coalition Government and its epochal reform agenda for education.
The election of the Coalition (Liberal/National Party) Government in N.S.W. in 1988 ended a twelve-year period of Labor government in N.S.W. From the outset, the Greiner government was clearly intent on implementing the reforms it had planned and communicated in the period leading up to the1988 election. This reform agenda had four key features: (a) the economic reform of the State and in particular of the public sector, b) the introduction of a managerialist approach to public administration, (c) the establishment of new ethical standards by which governments and the public sector would be bound, and (d) a major restructure of education. Dr Terry Metherell assumed responsibility for the Education portfolio and immediately began to implement the policies he had outlined in numerous "Fact Sheets" prior to the election. As shadow education minister, Metherell had developed a clear and wide-ranging agenda for reform. This agenda was breath-taking in its scope and included a complete review of the Department of Education, the integration of children with special needs into mainstream classrooms, developing a new method of developing curriculum for schools, making legal provision for home schooling, the establishment of school councils, bringing greater diversity of schools to the State system, and addressing decades of neglect of maintenance of school buildings. Senior educationalists within the Department, although aware of the "Fact Sheets", were stunned to find that the Minister was adamant that these reforms would be implemented in detail. Not only would the reforms be implemented, senior bureaucrats learned that they would be implemented within the constraints of the overarching economic agenda of the government. This soon resulted in industrial upheaval as teachers reacted angrily to the budget cuts needed to finance the reform agenda. In their analysis, Gleeson et al. (1992) claimed that the Greiner Government believed that their emphatic victory in 1988 would mean that they could afford to be unpopular for an initial period and that this would be a necessary consequence of the speed and scope of their reforms. From the outset, plans were in place to move Metherell from the Education portfolio once the major changes had been implemented.
The strategy for implementing the major reforms in education involved commissioning reports on specific aspects of the agenda. To that end, Dr Brian Scott was asked to conduct a review of the Department of Education and recommend changes to the structure and organisation of State Schools, Sir John Carrick to review schooling in N.S.W. and to make specific recommendations as to appropriate legislative reform, and third, the Ministry to prepare a white paper on curriculum. The impact of these reports on the Education Reform Act (1990) will now be examined.
The Reports Which Informed the Contents of the Act
The Education Reform Act (1990) most closely reflected the key directions and recommendations of the Report of the Committee of Review of New South Wales Schools(1989), chaired by Sir John Carrick. The Committee had undertaken what Metherell justifiably claimed was the most comprehensive review of school education in the history of Australia. Consultation by the Committee had elicited 850 submissions. The resulting discussion paper received a further 320 responses. The final report, significantly addressed to the Premier, was widely published in full and summary form. Consultation on educational issues was not new, but the wide-ranging nature of the report and the process of comprehensive consultation were unprecedented in N.S.W.
A second major report, prepared by Dr. Brian Scott, School-Centred Education - Building a More Responsive State-School System, (1990) sought to bring about major changes in organisational and managerial policies and practices within the Department of Education and its schools. While it had little direct impact on the Education Reform Bill, even Part 6 of the Bill dealing with Government Schools, the Scott Review in most major aspects was congruent with the Carrick Report (1989). On matters such as quality and standards, efficiency, choice, accountability, a single K-12 Board, and registration of government and non-government schools there was considerable agreement. On one key issue the reports disagreed: the Carrick Committee recommended that the Board of Studies not only be responsible for broad minimum curriculum requirements but also for the development of specific and detailed syllabuses; the Scott Review while agreeing that minimum curriculum requirements were the province of the Board, argued strongly for a separate Curriculum Development Centre allowing all systems of schools to collaborate on detailed syllabus development. This difference reflected Scott's concern that the Board might be subject to "bureaucratic centralism" (p. 127).
Excellence and Equity - New South Wales Curriculum Reform, issued as a White Paper in November 1989 and prepared for the Minister by the Ministry of Education and Youth Affairs, was a detailed K-12 curriculum blueprint designed to underpin the work of the Board of Studies. It clearly built on previous work in the Department of Education including documents such as "The Primary Purpose" and an internal paper, "Towards 2000". Excellence and Equity (1989) emphasised subject based curriculum development within broad categories called Key Learning Areas. It also required a comprehensive review of all subjects within the Key Learning Areas. In direction, nature and scope it sat comfortably with the Carrick Report (1990).
A common theme for all three reports and the Education Reform Act (1990) itself is the extent of consultation that had taken place. While critics of the Government argued that proposals for reform were being pushed through in unseemly haste, it cannot be denied that the opportunities for submissions and debate were ground breaking for educational legislation. The Minister on introducing the Bill on 29 March 1990 in the Legislative Assembly, after months of discussion on an exposure draft of the Bill-itself a novel approach adopted by the Minister-stated, "This legislation is the culmination of the most extensive process of consultation on education policy ever undertaken by a Government in this nation's history". Allowing for parliamentary hyperbole, the Minister was not far off the mark.
Key Features of the Education Reform Act (1990)
The Education and Public Instruction Act (1987), passed only three years previously, sought, among other things, to bring coherence to a plethora of legislation, regulations, and rules enacted since the Public Instruction Act 1880. It was however, essentially operational and administrative in character and said nothing explicitly about educational principles, objectives, curriculum requirements, or standards. It, like most previous educational legislation, concerned itself with basic provisions for matters such as compulsory school attendance and requirements for non-government school registration. It strongly reflected a traditional bureaucratic approach through regulation and restrictions. For example, Section 1 of the Act dealt with compulsory attendance and penalties pursuant to such non-attendance.
Explicit Statement of Objects and Principles
In marked contrast, the Education Reform Act (1990) immediately proclaimed four key principles underpinning the legislation in Part 2 - Objects Of Act, namely that "in enacting this Act, Parliament has had regard to the following principles:
a. every child has the right to receive an education; b. the education of a child is primarily the responsibility of the child's parents; c. it is the duty of the State to ensure that every child receives an education of the highest quality; d. the principal responsibility of the State in the education of children is the provision of public education.
Of special significance is the emphasis on the child, the quality of education, the obligations of parents, and the duty of the State.
Following these principles, the Principal Objects of the Act (Part 2, S. 5,) are stated: (a) to set out curriculum requirements including minimum curricula for registration and the curriculum for the recognised certificates, (b) to provide for the establishment and operation of government schools, (c) the registration and accreditation of non-government schools, (d) to allow children to be educated at home, and (e) to provide for the grant of School and Higher School Certificates. The Objects for administration of this Act (Part 2, S. 6) state Parliament's intention for "every person concerned with administration of this Act or of children of school-age" to have regard to the following:
a. assisting each child to achieve his or her educational potential; b. promotion of a high standard of education in government schools which is provided free of charge for instruction and without discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, or religion; c. encouraging innovation and diversity within and among schools; d. provision of an education for children that gives them access to opportunities for further study, work or training; e. mitigating educational disadvantages arising from the child's gender or from geographic, economic, social, cultural, lingual or other causes; f. provision of an education for Aboriginal children that has regard to their special needs; g. development of an understanding of Aboriginal history and culture by all children; h. provision of an education for children from non-English speaking backgrounds that has regard to their special needs;. i. recognition of the special problems of rural communities, particularly small and isolated communities; j. provision of opportunities to children with special abilities; k. provision of special educational assistance to children with disabilities; l. development of a teaching staff that is skilled, dedicated and professional; m. provision of opportunities for parents to participate in the education of their children; n. provision of an education for children that promotes family and community values.
Taken together, these Objects reflect very clearly the Government's fundamental philosophy and approach to education. The stress is on quality and standards of achievement, providing an education leading to further study or work, giving parents a greater role in the education of their children and encouraging family values, promoting diversity and innovation, defining equity in terms of providing opportunities for recognised groups with special needs including, significantly, those with special abilities. The Principles and the Objects of the Act indicate in a very marked way the watershed between pre and post 1990.
Curriculum
In a further emphatic departure from previous education legislation, the 1990 Act established a firm K-12 curriculum framework, (Part 3, Divs 1 & 2), the alteration of which would now require public, parliamentary debate. Key Learning Areas were given legislative authority, and a broad core curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12 was established. Syllabuses for courses of study (Part 3, Div. 3)-the details of which were to be developed by a new K-12 Board of Studies and approved by the Minister-were now required to include aims, objectives and, for the first time, outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills, and practical experience to be achieved by students at various levels of achievement by the end of specified stages in the course. This emphasis on outcomes underpinned the Government's view that specific achievements were definable and as such would set unmistakably clear and realistic goals for teachers. It would overcome, it was thought, the often vague and unattainable goals associated with curricula of the 1970s, especially those with process oriented curriculum aims and objectives.
The twin concepts of educational stages and specified syllabus outcomes also reflected the first serious attempt in legislation to provide for flexible, individual student progression and thereby break the iron law of lock-step, year-by-year progress. All N.S.W. syllabuses since 1990 have been structured in chronological stages of two years each of which includes a detailed set of expected knowledge and skills outcomes. Unlike the National Statements of Outcomes-which do not conceive of stages but use the notion of levels of achievement not fixed to any chronological stage, and which are therefore even more flexible-the N.S.W. use of stages was seen as an intermediate phase in the development of outcomes so that teachers were more able to relate particular outcomes with traditional chronological development. The N.S.W. use of outcomes was thought to have a further advantage over the national outcomes in that the N.S.W. staged outcomes were clearly tied to the knowledge and skills as detailed in syllabus content.
The Act signified for the first time in N.S.W. the centrality and importance of curriculum in the education of children. The Minister argued passionately in the Second Reading of the Bill that, "there is no aspect of schooling of greater importance to the community". (Hansard, 1990, p.1345). No registered school or home-schooler could avoid providing a legally mandated broad minimum curriculum. Further, specific and detailed syllabus documents were to be produced by a single, statutory authority directly responsible to Parliament through the Minister. These courses of study were to be based on a syllabus model enshrining aims, objectives, knowledge, skills, practical experiences, and outcomes. The Act represented a powerful attempt to "improve" curriculum standards by re-affirming the primacy of a traditional subject based approach within the Key Learning Areas framework which would replace, especially at the primary school level, a perceived weakness in existing arrangements, namely the plethora of process based curriculum statements.
Most notably and contentiously the Act reflected a view that syllabuses were to be developed or endorsed by the Board and approved by the Minister. This explicit legislation of the Minister's power concerning curriculum aroused heated debate and is taken up in some detail below. Essentially the provision reflected the Minister's position that curriculum developers should be subject to the legislative authority of Parliament thereby ensuring public scrutiny of mandated curriculum. Basic Skills Testing, the retention of state wide moderation of the School Certificate and external examinations for the Higher School Certificate, also novel legislative inclusions, were clearly the expressions of the general concern that publicly accountable outcomes and standards should be given the force of legislation.
Minister's Curriculum Authority and The Board of Studies
A third key feature of the Act was the description of explicit powers and responsibilities of the Minister in relation to curriculum and the Board of Studies, a body formed by the Act. There was some ambiguity before 1990 about the Minister's explicit powers regarding specific syllabuses approved or endorsed by the Board. The Carrick Report (1989) pointed out in its discussion of the role of the Board in relation to Government policy that, "the power of the Minister to intervene either to introduce or reject a particular syllabus is at best unclear" (p.144). The 1987 Act (Clause 30 (I)) stated: The Board has the following functions:
a. to determine or approve courses of studies to be undertaken by candidates for certificates of secondary education and to grant certificates of secondary education.
However, Clause 30 (h) provided that one of the Board's functions is: to advise and make recommendations to the Minister in relation to -
(ii) patterns of study, including the balance between any compulsory and optional courses of study or experiences required of candidates for either of the secondary certificates. Thus the Act appears to give the Minister the power to determine the broad curriculum framework while the Board should determine or approve syllabuses (courses of studies). The Committee asked whether this decision was too arbitrary, especially where strong public support might support intervention by the Minister. It concluded that the relative powers should be more clearly defined and recommended that the Board "should determine or approve courses of study (syllabuses). This should be accepted by governments as the norm "but if the Minister chose to intervene "the Minister and the Board shall make public the nature of the intervention and the Board's advice" (p. 144). In other words the Minister should have the power to intervene where a syllabus endorsed by the Board raised issues of public concern, but this power is to be kept in check by the power vested in the Board to call the Minister to account before the Parliament. The Committee regarded "a free flow of dialogue between the Board and the Minister as a valuable and healthy activity. True independence lies in the integrity of Board members".
In his Second Reading and Reply speeches the Minister took great care to define a position vis-à-vis the relative powers of the Board and Minister and insisted on a line that was stronger than the Carrick Committee had recommended. The Bill unambiguously gave the Minister the right to approve syllabuses. Clause 14 (2) states: "The Minister may approve particular syllabuses developed by the Board and may give general approval for syllabuses endorsed by the Board." In arguing for this position the Minister correctly pointed to the fact that approval of primary syllabuses had always been a Ministerial function. Furthermore the Minister pointed to a number of cases where a previous Minister had used his de facto powers to intervene and order changes to aspects of a syllabus without there having been any opportunity for public debate. He stated that, "any change will be made by Parliament, in an open and democratic manner with full public accountability, not in backroom discussions between interest groups or bureaucrats". Similarly, he denied that putting the curriculum framework into legislation rather than leaving them in less visible regulations and rules "as had been traditional practice" would expose the curriculum to improper curriculum interference or that Parliament will exert undue influence over what is taught in schools. "There will be proper parliamentary scrutiny, ministerial responsibility, and public accountability for the basic framework of the core curriculum in our schools" and "the elected Government has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that our children have access to broad, balanced and appropriate curriculum which is generally acceptable to the community". He noted cautiously, however, that, "the difficult aspect is getting the right process to achieve it" and "there are many people who have a legitimate and special role in this process". While educators have a key stake in the curriculum, "the wider community has a major interest" and "only the elected Government can protect this wider interest and be held publicly accountable for it both inside and outside the Parliament". The intention of the Government "is to achieve the most effective balance of power and responsibilities in the development of the curriculum, most importantly, to ensure that the process involves full public accountability".
The Act also clarified the limitation of the Board's functions, namely at
Part 3, Division 3, Clause 14 (I) "The Board may, for the purposes of this Part, develop syllabuses for courses of study or endorse syllabuses developed by schools or other educational bodies." In other words, the Minister had no powers to develop a syllabus or adopt a syllabus developed by a body other than the Board. It is instructive to note that while some amendments were made to the Act in 1997 regarding changes to the Higher School Certificate, Minister Aquilina, who had earlier been trenchantly critical of the Minister's powers of syllabus approval, left the relevant curriculum and ministerial power sections unchanged. Perhaps it was thought that Clause 15 dealing with disagreement between Minister and Board was sufficient to overcome any friction. That clause states "if the Minister does not approve any recommendation of the Board to which this section applies, the Board may request the Minister (and if so the Minister is required) to make public, as soon as practicable (but within 21 days), the Minister's decision not to approve the recommendation and the reasons for the decision".
It is worthwhile noting that since the Bill became law no Minister has been requested to inform Parliament of the substance of his or her disagreements with the Board. Furthermore, the Act remains silent on the Board's responsibilities and powers should a Minister instruct the Board to develop a particular syllabus against its better judgement, as was the case when Minister Aquilina instructed the Board to reinstate a superseded Years 11- 12 Industrial Arts syllabus. The composition of the Board and the employment relationship between the Minister and senior bureaucrats provide some explanation, if not all, for the Board's reluctance to require the Minister to make public the reasons for syllabus decisions. The Industrial Arts case was clearly an example where political decisions resulting from the actions of a group of Industrial Arts teachers overruled carefully reasoned curriculum and educational arguments articulated by the Board.
Registration of Schools
The registration of non-government schools had been a major focus of the 1987 Act. The considerable increase in small fundamentalist Christian and other non-government schools such as Rudolf Steiner schools had raised the important issue of whether the state should make registration of non-government schools dependent upon schools pursuing a state imposed curriculum.
Since 1866 the State had sought to ensure minimum standards in non-government schools. Until the 1987 Act was introduced, non-government schools underwent a two-stage process referred to as "certification" and "registration". The Public Instruction (Amendment) Act 1916 defined certification in terms of "regular and efficient instruction" and physical requirements pertaining to health and safety, while the 1961 amendments provided for registration of non- government schools seeking to present candidates for the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate. To obtain registration schools had to meet the specific curriculum, staffing, organisational and physical requirements set by the Secondary Schools Board for Years 7-10 and the Board of Senior School Studies for Years 11-12. The overwhelming majority of non-government schools were certified and registered. A third piece of legislation, the Bursary Endowment Act 1912 required schools seeking to enrol holders of secondary Bursary Awards to be separately registered under its provisions. What is important to note, however, is that while schools needed certification to operate as schools, they did not require it unless they sought state funding. Nor did they require registration from any of the three Boards in order to operate unless they wanted to present candidates for the recognised certificates.
This complex of legislation, added to over the years by a series of regulations and rules, created problems both for the schools and for the Departmental Inspectors of Schools responsible for certification and registration. As the legislation stood, for example, schools could normally only be closed on the basis of physical deficiencies. Generally this was an unlikely reason for school closure. The government could, however, choose to prosecute parents who sent their children to a non-certified school for being in breach of the compulsory school attendance requirements. In effect it was virtually impossible to close schools on this basis because detecting uncertified schools -usually enrolling only a few students-and identifying such students was very difficult. An additional problem in the existing legislation was that the concept of "regular and efficient instruction" was never clearly defined so that any challenges by Inspectors of Schools on these grounds were extremely difficult to sustain. The Education and Public Instruction Act 1987 sought to bring coherence and clarity to the existing legislation by requiring all schools enrolling students in the compulsory years of schooling to be registered for the particular kind of education offered: primary, secondary or "of a prescribed kind". The Minister now registered primary schools and those "of a prescribed kind" on the basis of recommendations from Department of Education Inspectors of Schools using the previous certification process, though refined and classified by regulation as to content of courses, teaching, organisational methods, educational resources, staff, and physical requirements. The effect was to force all primary schools to follow to a considerable extent the existing state curriculum. The nature of that curriculum, its interpretation by Inspectors and its appropriateness to the needs of a diverse range of schools caused considerable concern.
Secondary schools were registered by the newly formed Board of Secondary Education on the recommendation of Department of Education Inspectors of Schools who now combined the previous certification and registration process into a single registration process. In effect, all secondary schools, irrespective of their religious or philosophical positions, had to be registered by the State and follow an education designed to lead to the award of a secondary certificate. Considerable controversy accompanied the parliamentary passage of the legislation with some school representatives threatening to defy the Act mainly on the basis of their religious view that did not recognise the State's authority in detailed matters of education. Overall the 1987 requirements were widely regarded by the non-government school sector as too closely modelled on Department of Education policy and practice. It was argued that too little emphasis was placed on parental rights with regard to choice and diversity in schooling.
The question of the registration of non-government schools again became a key issue in the debate on the Education Reform Bill. While the new legislation recognised as a fundamental principle the State's duty to ensure that every child received an education "of the highest standard", the Act acknowledged that parents are primarily responsible for the education of their children. In seeking to balance the rights of parents and the responsibilities of the State, the Act overcame a century of uncertainty regarding the status of non-government schools. While reaffirming that the State had rights to ensure that children's educational experiences prepared them as useful citizens and that the State's financial contributions needed to be effectively used, the rights of parental choice and primary responsibility were guaranteed.
The 1990 Act separated registration-license to operate-from accreditation -authority to present candidates for the award of secondary certificates-thereby returning in some respects to the pre-1987 position. Significantly, the agents with responsibility to inspect non- government schools were to be inspectors attached to the independent-that is, independent of school systems-Board of Studies, not to the Department of Education. Furthermore, Clause 104 (2) of the Act gave the Board power "to arrange for the use of services of any staff (by secondment or otherwise) or facilities of a teaching service, a government department, an administrative office, a public or local authority or any other relevant body". Unusually for a Public Service organisation directly responsible to a Minister, the Board was able to employ curriculum and assessment specialists from both government and non- government schools thereby increasing the perception and reality of the Board's independence from the Department of School Education. The Board's independence was seen to be an important point by the non-government school sector. As the Carrick Report (1989) noted of the pre 1990 position, "the Department of Education is seen to have very considerable influence on the Board's decisions . . . its administrative staff should be seen to be clearly separate from the Department of Education" (p. 140).
A significant innovation of the Act was the capacity of non-government schools to form a system of no less than ten schools with authority to monitor their schools' compliance with the Act. Schools wishing to remain independent of systems retained the right to individual registration undertaken by the Board's inspectors. The Minister, on the recommendation of the Board, had to be satisfied that systems had the capacity to monitor adequately compliance with the requirements for registration of schools and (if appropriate) accreditation (Part 7, S. 42 (2)).
The introduction of systems had the immediate effect of freeing systemic Catholic schools from what was perceived to be excessive bureaucratic control and the eleven N.S.W. Catholic education offices quickly formed themselves into systems for the purposes of registration. The Carrick Report (1989) had noted, "many non-government schools see the rules and regulations of the Board for accreditation as being too tight and inflexible, particularly with regard to requirements for a minimum number of hours for a syllabus over Years 7-10"(p. 140). Two other groups of schools-the Seventh Day Adventist and the Community Christian Schools-also formed registration systems.
The Board, in implementing the new registration procedures, followed the intent and spirit of the Act by introducing the practice of registration by documentation. Past practice had required each school to be visited. In secondary schools this generally involved a team of inspectors. In 1988 one hundred and fifty nine non-government schools were visited of which seventy-five required follow up action because they did not fully meet requirements. (Scott Review, 1990, p. 124). It was estimated that roughly twenty percent of an inspector's time was devoted to non-government school registration matters. In contrast, registration visits are now largely based on random visits with the majority of schools being registered either on the advice of systems' authorities such as the eleven N.S.W. Catholic Diocesan offices or on the basis of documentation sent to the Board by individual schools.
Most importantly, the separation of registration (the right to operate) and accreditation (the right to present candidates for the Board's certificates) restored a school's option of developing its own curriculum providing it was able to demonstrate that it could meet the Act's minimum curriculum requirements. Part 7 Division 7 of the Act introduced the right of a non-government school to object conscientiously on religious grounds to registration under the Act. The Minister was given the power to accept such an objection if in his opinion he would be required to register the school had an application for registration been made and if he was satisfied that the objection to registration was conscientiously held on religious grounds. While the provision might prove to be difficult to monitor effectively it provided an escape clause for a handful of schools that regarded their continued existence as threatened by the 1987 legislation. Again it was a concrete and visible example of the basic philosophy underpinning the legislation, namely that parents and schools should have greater freedom to determine their children's education. Overall, the new registration procedures were designed to give greater weight to the views of non-government schools and parents seeking an alternative to the existing system by providing more flexibility, diversity and involvement of the non-government systems in the registration process.
A related and very contentious issue facing the 1990 legislation was the proposal in the Bill to register all government schools. Both the Carrick Report (1989, p. 142) and the Scott Review (1990, p. 126) supported the proposal. Both noted that government schools were already a system capable of giving guarantees of compliance with the Board's requirements through the Department of Education's monitoring of school operations. Board inspectors should have the power to visit any school to determine if requirements were being met, perhaps through a system of random school visits. Scott noted that a significant advantage in such an approach was that the Government would be provided with an external appraisal of all systems without exception. He was clearly focussing on Government schools here because they alone of all schools had never in the history of N.S.W. education been subject to an external appraisal. Indeed, at the time of the Act's passage, there was no detailed, systematic inspection of government schools' compliance with the Act, either from the Department or from external sources. Instead, there was a superficial checking mechanism that required Principals to sign a document indicating that the school had met basic Board requirements. The fact that the Higher School Certificate examinations regularly revealed serious breaches of Board requirements is evidence that internal monitoring was barely satisfactory.
In the second reading debate the Labor Opposition argued against the proposal to register government schools noting that "the Bill points out a fundamental difference between the Opposition and the Government" and "the government school system should [not] be treated in the same way as non-government schools or non-government school systems" because "the Minister is responsible, through the Director-General of School Education, to provide quality education for all our students" and "vigorous . . . monitoring procedures are in place now" (Hansard, 1990, p. 1706). Other Opposition speakers regarded the proposal as a further example of the Government's downgrading of public education. The Minister in reply simply stated, "if it is good enough to set standards for non-government schools, it is good enough to set the same standards for government schools" (p. 2833). Because maintenance of government school buildings had been a major election issue, some government speakers called for the registration of government schools so that the provision of the Act could be used against government schools whose buildings were deemed to be unhealthy or dangerous.
In our view the settlement of the registration issue in the 1990 Act, particularly as it applies to government schools, is likely to be revisited by future governments and will continue to be strongly opposed by the Department. This matter deserves greater public debate. The current position regarding registration of government schools is at odds with the philosophy of the Act.
Home-schooling
In keeping with the strengthened role of parents the 1990 Act (Part 7 Division 6) introduced a significantly more flexible approach to home-schooling, that is, schooling where parents or caregivers take full responsibility for educating their children at home. Home-schooling had had a long if troubled place in the history of N.S.W. education.
The 1987 Act had been clearly designed to make home-schooling an unappealing option. In this light it is easy to understand the Shadow Minister's comments in the second reading debate in 1990 that "home-schooling does not have equal standing with enrolment at a government school or at a registered non-government school. Home-schooling should not be encouraged and should always be regarded as inferior to school attendance" (Hansard, 1990, p. 1706). The 1987 Act required children between the age of 6 and below the age of 15 to attend school. Therefore home-schooling was only possible if the Minister granted a certificate of exemption from school attendance. The Act required the Minister to be satisfied that "regular and efficient" instruction and "suitable conditions" were made available. Home- schoolers were inspected by Department of Education Inspectors of Schools who made recommendations to the Minister. The Act made no provision for an appeal against the Minister's decision.
The issues raised by home-schooling registration were similar to those that related to school registration. They included questions of educational effectiveness, freedom of parental choice, responsibilities of the State, variety and flexibility of instruction methods, appropriateness of curriculum and assessment, and evidence of effective learning. Additionally, the matters of possible child abuse and exploitation were seen by many to be especially relevant to home-schooling.
The 1990 Act significantly altered requirements and procedures regarding home-schooling and clearly demonstrated the difference in philosophy and approach from previous legislation. Instead of seeking exemption from attendance at school, home-schooling was now recognised as a viable option to school so that parents could apply for registration of the child for home-schooling, rather than exemption from attendance at school. Indeed, home-schooling is included in Part 7 of the Act that deals with the registration of non- government schools.
Under the 1990 Act, the Minister can refuse an application for home-schooling on the recommendation of an "authorised person", usually a Board inspector who has responsibility to monitor conditions of registration. These include the provision of a program of learning based on the Board's minimum curriculum requirements. The home-schooler must also allow an inspection of premises and records as required by the Act. As with non-government schools, the right of conscientious objection to registration on religious grounds is recognised for home-schoolers and similar conditions apply for such objection to be approved by the Minister as apply to schools. The 1990 Act also allows for appeal provisions, unlike the 1987 Act. The only significant difference between registration for home-schoolers and schools is that the maximum registration period for schools is six years while for home-schoolers it is two years. It is not surprising that the 120 children being home-schooled in 1988 (The Carrick Report, 1990, p. 91) increased by more than 10 fold in the years after 1990. In 1999, 865 families had registered 1512 students for home-schooling (Board of Studies, 1999).
Children With Special Needs
The Act (S. 20) gave the Minister the power to provide "special or additional" assistance for government schoolchildren with special needs. This included children with (a) disabilities, (b) those who live in remote or isolated areas, (c) children from non-English speaking backgrounds, (d) Aboriginal children, (e) children with special abilities -the first time these were recognised in legislation in N.S.W-and (f) those children who are disadvantaged by their socio-economic background. The Minister's assistance may include financial assistance, or facilities, courses of study, staff, staff training, or correspondence schools. Previous legislation made no reference to children with special needs, except for those with physical, intellectual or emotional disabilities and then only with respect to relevant requirements for purposes of non-government school registration.
It is also worth noting that the 1990 Act provided, for the first time, the opportunity for a Board to advise the Minister concerning special arrangements that may be needed for students with disabilities (Section 102 (2) (r) (v)) including the approval of special courses of study, the modification of requirements for the grant of the recognised certificates and the grant of special records of achievement. It is significant that the legislation has led the Board of Studies to develop a coherent curriculum support for students with special needs and has modified its requirements for the grant of certificates so that both the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate are now widely available to such students. This section alone deserves to be regarded as an Australian watershed in the provision of educational legislative support for students with disabilities.
Board of Studies
While we have commented on the Board of Studies in the Curriculum section earlier in this paper, the establishment of a K-12 Board of Studies (Part 9 of the Act) was of special significance and its creation underpinned most of the major recommendations of the Carrick Report (1989). As such it warrants further attention in its own right.
Some important issues of long standing interest in N.S.W. education were settled by the 1990 legislation. The 1987 Act had established a single board-the Board of Secondary Education-to replace the existing Secondary Schools Board, responsible for Years 7-10, and the Board of Senior School Studies, responsible for Years 11-12. Both of these Boards had been created by the 1961 legislation. The establishment of a single secondary board was a recognition that the senior school population had changed markedly since the 1960s. By the mid 1980s the retention of students into Years 11 and 12 was such that the traditional and exclusively academic range of courses of study no longer met the needs of all senior students. Dramatic changes in the economy, youth unemployment and new industry requirements accentuated the need for curriculum change. As a result the Board of Secondary Education not only reviewed and began to introduce more varied curriculum, it proposed to issue a Certificate of Secondary Education which was an exit credential for any post-compulsory age student and which recorded cumulative achievements in addition to or other than scores in traditional external examinations. A change in government in 1988 meant that this Certificate was not introduced, the School Certificate was maintained and strengthened and Records of Achievement were introduced for Years 11 and 12 students.
The Board of Studies built on the work of its predecessor and further widened curriculum options including joint Secondary Schools/TAFE courses, links with industry, university recognised vocational courses, as well as Distinction courses for accelerants. For the first time the full functions of the Board were spelled out in Section 102 of the Act, including the development of syllabuses "appropriate for students (including candidates for the recognised certificates) who wish to continue at or return to schools after the normal school-learning age (including on a part time basis)" (102 (i) (g)) and to "develop or endorse, in consultation with the TAFE Commission, syllabuses for courses of study that will enable school students to be granted credits by TAFE establishments" (102 (i) (h)). The Act also called for curriculum material to assist Aboriginal students (102 (i) (o) and (p)) and "to promote the provision of education in schools that adequately equip students to acquire a vocation and for their life in the community" (102 (i) (q)). All of the courses of study developed for senior students received recognition as part of the Higher School Certificate even though some courses did not receive Matriculation recognition. The continued preeminence of the Higher School Certificate as the final school credential was thus clearly signalled in legislation.
The fact that the Board of Studies was given responsibility for primary curriculum development was highly controversial. Traditionally primary curriculum development had been a Department of Education responsibility and the broad curriculum requirements were governed by Regulations under the Act. Now it was placed in the hands of an independent authority and firmly embedded in the Act itself and was therefore less likely to be open to bureaucratic and political change. The Department of Education strongly defended the status quo arguing, among other things, that as it was responsible for the great majority of the State's students and that it had developed the relevant necessary curriculum expertise over many years with appropriate resources it should retain central influence on the Board. It was also argued that the Department of Education ought not be simply reduced to a system for managing schools but that it should retain responsibility for the core function of curriculum development, albeit with outside assistance as had been traditional practice.
Those who argued that curriculum development should not reside with the Department of Education pointed to the need for an independent K-12 Board, or two Boards, one responsible for K-6 and the second for Years 7-12. The view was put that a Board determined curriculum developed by an independent Board would have greater authority, would be more open to public scrutiny and would more easily accommodate the needs of the non-government school sector. It was also argued by those who supported a single K-12 Board that a curriculum continuum which such a body could provide more easily, would be a great advantage. A K-12 Board would also, it was thought, facilitate a more coherent curriculum and a greater consistency of approach to its development by adopting similar syllabus development guidelines for primary and secondary curriculum, by monitoring the establishment of appropriate primary-secondary links and by avoiding possible repetition and discontinuities evident in existing primary and secondary documents.
It should be noted that while the Scott Review (1990) supported a K-12 Board with powers to determine minimum curriculum guidelines, it proposed that detailed syllabuses should be developed by an inter-systemic Curriculum Development Centre. (p. 129). It was argued that this would lessen the centralist tendencies a powerful Board might engender and would encourage the greater involvement of classroom teachers. Scott also advised against the establishment of a separate Board bureaucracy. Rather, a Departmental Statutory Board Unit should be created to replace the Department's Statutory Board Directorate that should be staffed by Departmental and non-departmental officers. The unit would be based in Departmental offices (Ryde) where it could draw on other Department resources. It would, however, be responsible to the Board.
The recommendations of the Scott Review (1990) were not adopted. Instead, the Carrick Committees recommendation for an independent K-12 Board, supported by its own bureaucracy, and with a President responsible to the Minister was accepted. The reason for the adoption of a K-12 focus was that the Carrick Report (1989) argued that there was a need for a curriculum continuum that could not easily be achieved by separate bodies (p. 141). It also argued that the expense of separate bodies could not be justified and it dismissed the view that primary curriculum issues would be dominated by secondary school curriculum issues because a Board of Studies primary education sub-committee could help achieve a balance between primary and secondary needs.
The Carrick Report (1989) expressed concerns about the need to re-focus on primary education and to ensure "a logical and smooth continuation of curriculum development from kindergarten to Year 12" (p. 140). In pursuing this view the Report suggested that more specificity and direction should be provided in primary curriculum documents, noting that there existed a "plethora of curriculum documents which primary schools are expected to . . . implement" (p. 155). By implication the Carrick Report suggested that an independent K - 12 Board of Studies was more likely to provide the necessary direction and coherence than the previous Board had been able to achieve. In this context the Carrick Report also drew attention to what it regarded as the unsatisfactory nature of across-curriculum issues, including Multicultural Education, Girls Education, Aboriginal Education, Environmental Education and Technological Education. Specifically the Report argued that some schools devoted excessive time to these areas, sometimes even treating them as separate curriculum areas rather than as integrative concepts. While the Report did not say so, some critics of across-curriculum issues believed that they were often pursued by sectional interests and were more easily subject to political bias in the classroom.
The Carrick Report (1989, p. 158) identified a further advantage of a single independent Board as facilitating inter-systemic curriculum co-operation. It noted that,
there is (currently) no . . . movement of support (nor) advisory documents from the non-government systems to the government sector (and) there is a good case for the increased exchange of curriculum ideas and documentation among systems and schools. A curriculum unit, composed of officers from both government and non-government school backgrounds, and attached to an independent Board of Studies would be in an excellent position to foster and co-ordinate such an exchange.
There is no doubt that one of the effects of the Act in establishing an independent Board of Studies was to allow for a dramatic increase in the contribution and involvement of the non- government sector in the determination of curriculum and the development of related policy.
The final, and from the point of view of some of the participants in the study, most politically sensitive feature of the establishment of the Board of Studies was that of its independence of the Department. Development of curriculum by the Department had been a key role performed by the Department as constructed in the mid-nineteenth century by William Wilkins. Control of and responsibility for the curriculum was perhaps the most powerful and direct means by which the various Directors-General of Education could exercise their educational leadership of the State. The settlement of the issue of who should determine what gets taught in schools had, since the development of state schooling in N.S.W., been one which clearly favoured a technicist rather than a "political" or democratic resolution. From William Wilkins through to Fenton Sharpe, the Directors General, with their technical expertise, professional experience in and study of schooling, by and large determined the contents of the educational programs of successive generations of people in N.S.W., especially at the K - 6 level.
The Carrick Report (1987) understated the situation when it noted that, "there has been a perception that the Board is part of the Department of Education. . . . (and) the Department of Education is seen to have considerable influence on the Board's decisions and on its procedures" (p. 140). The Scott Review (1990), not withstanding its recommendation against the establishment of a separate Board "bureaucracy", also expressed concerns about "the level of administrative influence exerted on the Board of Secondary Education by the Department of Education" (p. 129). Given that: (a) the Board and its sub-committees were chaired by the Director - General or his senior officers; (b) most of the Board's syllabuses were heavily influenced by the Department's inspectorial, curriculum and assessment officers; and (c) practically all the Board's administrative and financial support came from the Department, the findings of the Scott Review (1990) and the Carrick Report (1989) were well founded.
The Act (1990) in establishing an independent K-12 Board of Studies with a full-time President directly responsible to the Minister broke once and for all the Department's one hundred and ten year hegemony over curriculum, assessment, credentialing and school registration in N.S.W.. The President of the Board was not only to chair the Board but was to have the authority of a departmental head with the power among other things to appoint staff. The Department of Education's representation on the Board of Studies was significantly reduced by the 1990 Act and in that the Director-General or his or her nominee was the only Departmental officer on the Board. The down-grading of direct Departmental influence on the Board was also reflected in the composition of sub-committees, and syllabus committees: a matter which in the early 1990s was, and more recently has continued, albeit in a less obvious ways, to be a source of friction between the Department and the Board.
Conclusion
This paper is the first of several planned to provide a detailed, critical, ethnographic account of the development, contents, passage, and implementation of the N.S.W. Education Reform Act. (1990). Here we have described several of the key features of the Act and attempted to demonstrate how each of these marked, to varying extents, a significant resettlement of fundamental tensions, dilemmas and constraints that operate in the construction of schooling in a modern, pluralist state. On the basis of this analysis and of the history of the education legislation in N.S.W., we have argued that the Act was the most significant legislative reform in N.S.W. in the 20th century.
In future publications we plan to examine in greater detail the context and each of the features of the Act including those features that have been outlined in this paper. Using data from our ongoing interviews with policy elites involved in the development and passage of the Act, and other sources described in this paper, we plan to tell the story "behind" the Act and provide insights into the complex and human character of education policy making in N.S.W.. In this manner we hope to continue to addressing an important and hitherto neglected subject in the scholarly literature.
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