Communist Programme For Educational Progress

An Educational Code providing minimum conditions for the educational welfare of all schoolchildren needs to be drawn up and put into operation. This should provide for classes of a size that can be effectively taught: junior classes not to exceed 30, senior classes (ages 15-18) 20, remedial classes to have a maximum of 12.

The same basic education should be provided for all, throughout primary and secondary education, consisting of a “core” of basic subjects, with additional elective subjects according to pupils’ aptitudes and special interests. The courses should be balanced, including both academic and practical subjects. Education should be free, with books and necessary equipment supplied; it should be secular and compulsory, and the school leaving age should be progressively raised as facilities become available, until a national minimum of 16 years is reached.

A scholarship scheme needs to be organised providing for stipends to all pupils successfully proceeding through secondary education, of a quarter of the basic wage; such stipend to be available after age 16; pupils of 14 and 15 to receive double child endowment.

All schools need to be provided with playing and recreation grounds at the rate of at least ¾ acre per 100 pupils. School halls, gymnasia, cafeterias, libraries and, in secondary schools, laboratories should be a basic part of the provision.

All large schools need, in addition to teaching staff, a medical orderly, registrar and clerk, and caretaker-gardener.

The school facilities should be fully used as evening and week-end cultural and sports youth centres with trained and paid supervisory staffs; and opportunities need to be provided for at least one recreational camp annually for all children.

Full daytime training should be established for all apprentices, and technical diploma students should be provided with study time off, with pay, prior to examinations.

State and Federal public finance should be restricted to State (public) schools; and the necessary action should be taken in concert by Federal and State authorities whilst maintaining State autonomy in administration.

In addition to these basic principles to safeguard the interests of children and promote their maximum development, a summary statement is made, below, of other basic requirements.

Industrial Code for Teachers

• Increased salaries and teachers’ college allowances to attract able students.

• Equal pay for men and women teachers.

• Staff-rooms, rooms for rest, rooms for parent interviews and other minimum amenities.

• Defined hours and conditions of work.

• Overtime to be paid at overtime rates.

• Senior staff to be relieved of routine clerical and administrative work.

• Increased numbers of teachers and training colleges.

• All teachers to be fully trained, professionally, and, in general, to graduate level, 4 years beyond matriculation.

• Additional specialist training in remedial teaching, infants, home science, technical, music and art teaching.

• Frequent refresher courses in school time.

• Additional study leave.

• Leave to exchange with teachers of other countries.

• Teacher exchange to be extended to cover socialist countries.

• All temporary and partly-trained teachers to have the opportunity to complete their training or qualification.

University and Technical Education

• Rapid expansion of university and technical student bodies.

• Corresponding expansion of staff, buildings and equipment.

• Abolition of all student quotas.

• Extension of selected university and technical courses to larger provincial towns.

• Double the number of Commonwealth scholarships immediately.

• An increase in means test for living allowance to £1500.

• Increased living allowance from £5/15/- maximum to ¾ of basic wage.

• Abolition of all “bonding” systems while retaining guarantee of employment.

• Equal opportunity for university and technical female staffs with male staffs.

• Immediate increase of university staffs of 60% to reach U.K. standards.

• More time for university and technical staffs for research and staff exchange.

• Removal of political checks for employment or promotion of graduates.

• Selected senior technical colleges to develop degree courses with university status.

• Subjects completed for diplomas to be recognised as partial qualification for such degrees.

• Compulsory inclusion of some “humanities” in technical courses and university science courses.

• Conversion between trade and technical courses, and between technical and university courses to be facilitated.

• Special facilities to enable non-graduate teachers to obtain a university degree, including the establishment by teachers’ colleges of their own degree courses.

• Co-ordination of all university, technical and teacher training education under a single national plan, whilst maintaining the largest possible measure of autonomy to individual universities and technical and teachers’ colleges.

Pre-School and After School

• A net-work of government-financed nursery schools and preschool kindergartens, both to assist in normal development of young children and to provide the necessary facilities for working mothers.

• Adequately-staffed and government-financed youth centres and other cultural centres and cheap sport facilities to provide for young people an opportunity to make satisfactory use of leisure time, and to counter the trend to delinquency created by the social conditions of capitalism.

Federal Finance Grants

• A special grant of Federal finance to enable the lag in buildings, equipment and teacher-training to be systematically overcome.

• Additional annual Federal grants, the amounts to be determined by a special commission which should take evidence both in Australia and overseas, including an examination of the educational system of the U.S.S.R., U.S.A. and Great Britain.

Democratic Control

• Repeal of any regulations limiting right of teachers to criticise shortcomings of education or administration.

• Regular meetings of principal and staff on school policy.

• Regular meetings of parents called by existing parents and citizens’ organisations.

• Parent-teacher co-operation to assist education departments to apply these policies on education.

• Education Commission to control and administer education in each State to include representatives elected by teachers’ and parents’ organisations.

Education in a Socialist Australia

The achievement of a large part of such a programme would mark a tremendous educational advance. Great as the advance would be, it is the minimum required by society for the age of automation.

However, it would still be incomplete, for only in a socialist society, when the restrictive effects of special vested interests are removed, and the whole community is integrated into a collective effort, and working with a collective spirit, can development of education and culture for the whole of society be fully realised.

In the socialist Australia of the future the education of the whole community to the level first, of full secondary, and then of tertiary education, will be a realisable goal.

This will involve a full polytechnical education for all, the combination of academic education with workshop and farming practice to end the contradiction between mental and manual labour and provide for the all-round development of all citizens. The task is twofold: to work for the reforms that can be won within the framework of capitalist society, and to build for the future when man, in socialist society, will have taken control of his environment, will have passed from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

The advance of science and of human productivity have brought mankind to the threshold of such a way of life. The transition to socialism, already accomplished by over one-third of the human race, opens new vistas of peaceful development for humanity, in which man will make a new qualitative advance, more profound in some respects than the historical transition from barbarism to civilisation.

The struggle for educational advance is a link in the chain of the progress of mankind towards this great goal.