This study traces the development of the system of Catholic systemic schools in the Archdiocese of Sydney from early colonial times to the
present, and analyses the perceptions and expectations that a sample
of secondary school principals in the System had of the systems
level administration in 1985.
The development of Catholic schools in the penal colony of New South
Wales was extremely slow. The first Catholic school was opened in
1817, and from 1833 to the 'free, secular, and compulsory' education
act in New South Wales in 1880, denominational schools received some
government grants.
When 'state-aid' was withdrawn in 1880, the wonder of education
history in Australia was that a separate Catholic school 'system'
emerged. This was brought about in large measure by the ability of
the Bishops and Clergy to activate the Catholic community, which had
been generally apathetic religiously and educationally, and by their
recruiting teachers who were members of Religious Congregations both
from abroad and locally.
The Religious carried the Catholic Schools 'system' in Sydney for
some seventy-five years (1880-1955). However, the recruiting of
Religious teachers declined from the 1950s. This, together with
rapid increases in school population, widening of the curriculum,
decreased class sizes and lighter teaching loads brought on a crisis
of survival for the Catholic schools. It was averted by the
reintroduction of 'State-Aid' and the recruiting and training of lay
teachers. Following the Karmel Report of 1973, Commonwealth
Government grants and programs grew many fold. In order to cope with
the new organisational complexities, including both financial and
educational accountability requirements of the government, many of
the Catholic schools, which had previously been organised on an
individual parish or Religious Congregation basis, joined together to
form systems. These Catholic Education Office systems (or CEO
systems) rapidly developed administrative bureaucracies. The Sydney
CEO System is the largest in Australia with nearly 6000 teachers and
over 110,000 pupils.
In this process of building an organisational system, the vital role
of the school principal is changing. This study examines the
responses of twenty-four secondary school principals, in the interview
situation, to questions on their perceptions and expectations of
the systems level administration.
The researcher has analysed the data in the light of some of the
literature on motivation theory and theories about complex
organisations and has suggested some facets of the systems level
administration that need to be addressed if the system is to grow in
effectiveness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219071 |
| Date | January 1986 |
| Creators | Joy, Geoffrey, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Geoffrey Joy |
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