This study attempts to trace the development of the Australian Capital Territory Secondary Principals' Council (SPC) from the midfifties
to the late seventies. The dramatic change from the monolithic
centralised New South Wales state education system to one of autonomous
school-based decision making of the new ACT School Authority forms the
background on which this study is developed.
The changing fortunes of the SPC as a pressure group are followed
from their prestigious days with the NSW school inspector to the depths
of the conflicts of the early seventies when change towards autonomy
was imminent. The Teachers' Federation, at this time, gained power at
the expense of the SPC when the union demanded that it be the sole
spokesman for ACT teachers.
The multiplicity of problems confronting the SPC in the late sixties
and early seventies resulted in the forming of the Preservation of
Principals Society (POPS), which conducted certain activities to allow
principals to get away from such pressures.
The gradual gaining of acceptance, within this new task environment,
by the SPC saw it become an expert unit within this participative model.
SPC members are on many committees which function to improve the
administration, the curricula, and other major facets of ACT education.
Finally, this study culminates in the SPC formulating a set of
goals to guide its operations in the future. Tentative recommendations
for Council to consider form a conclusion. These are to:
1. convince the ACT Legislative Assembly that the SPC is an
expert body which should be heeded when the Assembly
assumes control of local education, and
2. act as a group to monitor the curricula of their schools
to ensure that a relevant education is available for the
next generation.
Principals should initiate change for the future rather than react to
the problems of the past.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218891 |
| Date | January 1977 |
| Creators | Dooley, Brian John, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Teacher Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Brian John Dooley |
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