Adelaide High School in 1908, Australia's first coeducational state secondary school, opens against long opposition
Having a combined coeducational student enrolment from its start in 1908 gave Adelaide High School in Grote Street, Adelaide city, a strong foundation. By the end of 1908, 508 students were enrolled: 263 girls and 245 boys.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
The opening of Adelaide High School, the first free coeducational public secondary school in Australia, and maybe the British empire, in 1908 represented an important social breakthrough.
When the 1875 Education Act formalised public education in South Australia, a public secondary school was unimagined and nonexistent in Australia. While boys, from wealthier families, had access to private college, collegiate church schools for girls were rare.
In the early 1870s, with the new Adelaide University willing to provide classes for girls plus a shortage of teachers and pressure from parents, the state government was persuaded to open its first public secondary school – the Advanced School for girls in 1879.
Starting a public secondary school such as Adelaide High that took boys had been opposed for many reasons over many years. Church collegiate and private secondary school owners and supporters were concerned that government high schools would compete too well for enrolments and examination success. It was also believed that the secondary curriculum was unsuitable for working class boys and girls who only needed an elementary curriculum.
These argument were undermined in the leadup to World War I (1914-19) when British empire’s industrial and technological lack of readiness was exposed by the demand for more and better educated workers, technicians and managers.
Scholarships (exhibitions) previously had been available for South Australian boys to attend Prince Alfred’s College and the Collegiate School of St Peter and, for girls, the Advanced School. From 1908, these exhibitioners or scholarship winners were required to attend the new Adelaide High School in Grote Street, Adelaide city.
Enrolling both boys and girls from the start gave Adelaide High School added strength compared to early secondary schools that had failed in New South Wales. Its first headmaster William Adey still had to nurture a school culture and to justify the school’s existence.
