A history of the Australian Capital Territory Schools' Authority, 1966-1980 : a process of change frustrated

Abstract

This thesis examines the interaction of people during the planning and implementation of a radical change in Australian education: the creation of a decentralised, participatory school system in Canberra. The motives and priorities of the groups of stakeholders involved in the change - the parents, teachers and administrators - are examined. The members of the parents' group initiated and campaigned for the establishment of a decentralised, participatory school system for reasons, it is argued, derived from their membership of the New Middle Class. The teachers, represented in events by their union, were largely preoccupied with their concerns to improve working conditions and secure their fragile status as professionals: priorities which at times brought them into conflict with other stakeholders. Senior administrators in the Commonwealth Department of Education together with those in the Authority, were the members of the other key group of stakeholders; with some notable exceptions, their priorities determined by their role as advisors to their Minister and their background and training in bureaucracy. Achieving change is much more than passionately believing in an idea and campaigning to have it adopted, as the parents discovered. The social, economic and political context in which it is situated, which can change over time, and the congruence of the idea with other people's ideology, interests and agendas all play a part in determining the final outcomes. The first part of the thesis uses an Australian adaptation of a strategic planning model as a framework to explain the process used by the parents' group to plan the change they sought; the scene is set, the main characters identified and the decisions that were made and the actions taken to establish a new and different school system examined. The second part of the thesis is focused upon the implementation stage, and the consequences of decisions made during the planning stage are revealed when the expected outcomes are modified as different groups facilitate or obstruct participation. This thesis argues that while fundamental change occurred in the new school system, by 1980, the vision of a new democratic, participatory school system in the ACT was not realised in its original form, because, during the planning, the proponents of the change did not completely understand the ideology, interests and agendas of all the key stakeholders' groups, including their own, nor the influence these would have on the achievement of full participation in the school system. Nevertheless, the fact that the ACT Schools Authority was established with administrative structures unique in Australian education systems, was at that time, remarkable; and its legacy, the belief that bureaucracy can be challenged and participation should occur, endures.