Alfred Williams pushes for first state high schools in South Australia, formally recognised in 1915
Adelaide High School in Grote Street, Adelaide, in 1911. The school used (from left) the buildings of the Advanced School for Girls (1879), Grote Street Model School (1874) and Grote Street teacher training college (1876).
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Secondary state schools were created in South Australia due to the influence of a 1907 report to the reformist South Australian Tom Price Labor-coalition government by director of education Alfred Williams. He recommended government high schools for nation building and economic reasons. Williams also saw high schools as essential to educate, care and train “at risk” adolescents.
In 1908, Adelaide was the first government high schools, followed later by Norwood, Unley and Woodville – with no more metropolitan high schools opened until the 1950s migration boom. Williams did create 18 district high schools by 1911 by continuing classes in the primary schools of large country towns.
Attendance at government high schools was helped in 1915 when it became compulsory full-time for students aged seven to 13 to attend school. (Working class parents had petitioned for free elementary education, granted in 1891.)
The 1915 Education Act separated the district high schools from the public primary schools to which they were annexed. Adelaide High joined them to create a public high school system. Instead of chief assistants, the new leaders of the high schools along with Adelaide High, became headmasters and a secondary staff promotion and salaries system devised. William McCoy took over as director in 1919 when South Australian education was beset by low morale and stagnation.
McCoy removed promotion barriers for teachers, liberalised the inspecting system, increased salaries and insisted training be completed before teaching. He reformed the primary school syllabus in 1920, emphasising social-moral goals and patriotism. In 1925, he introduced central schools: primary school annexes offering post-primary courses in commercial, junior technical and homemaking.
The 1920s/30s Great Depression (when fees were introduced for high school) and World War II strained secondary education resources. The conundrum over vocational versus academic education was met with technical high schools in the 1950s. There were later closed – to be reconsidered with a tradespeople shortfall.
