Education In Crisis and the Way Forward
W.E Gollan
Published: Education in Crisis, by Current Book Distributors, 40 Market Street, Sydney, August, 1959, 47pp;
Source: Left History Archive, Marxist Internet Archive
Contents
The Crises in Australian Education
Putting First Things Last
Delinquency
Mechanisation and Automation Are Changing the Problem
Why Have We Fallen Behind?
Class Privilege Limits Efficiency
Free Education
Inequality of Opportunity
Educational Theory and Practice
Selection by Examination
Secondary Education For All
Selective Systems
The I.Q. System
Making the Child Fit the Coat
Remedial Teaching Without A Remedy
The Wyndham Report
What Can Be Done About the Wyndham Report?
The Murray Committee Report — and Education For National Development
What Kind of Education Is Needed?
The Communist View
Socialist Theory and Practice
Changing Man
Soviet Educational Developments
Moral Training
Culture For All
Education and Productive Labour
The Way Forward
Communist Programme For Educational Progress
Industrial Code for Teachers
University and Technical Education
Pre-School and After School
Federal Finance Grants
Democratic Control
Education in a Socialist Australia
About the Author
Mr. W. E. Gollan, B.A., is a prominent N.S.W. educationist. A double honours graduate of Sydney University, Mr. Gollan has been a teacher, and, in recent years a headmaster in N.S.W. high schools, for a period of 34 years.
As university tutorial lecturer, evening college principal and lecturer in the Newcastle Labour College he has had wide experience in adult education.
On the professional and policy making side of educational activity, Mr. Gollan is a former executive member of the N.S.W. Teachers’ Federation and was, for two years, president of the Secondary Teachers’ Association of N.S.W.
In political and industrial life he served for some time as executive member of the Labour Council of N.S.W., and has been, for 16 years, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia.
In 1955 Mr. Gollan visited Europe and Asia and was able to make first-hand observations of the educational systems of the U.S.S.R., China, Japan and parts of Scandinavia, and to engage in discussions with leading educationists in those countries.
He is widely known as a writer and public speaker.
Foreword
Public education has become a matter of wide national discussion. One reason is the growing crisis in education in Western Europe, U.S.A. and Australia, the obvious inadequacy of education to deal effectively with the problems confronting it; another, the spectacular achievements of education in the socialist world, the rapid advances from large-scale illiteracy in most of the socialist countries, a legacy they inherited from the past, to an advanced educational position on world standards.
To the proponents and apologists for the “cold war” this is seen as a challenge that needs to be met in terms of “turning out more scientists and engineers than the Russians”, of preparing for a trial of strength in military terms.
To those who value education as a means of promoting human culture, of advancing the intellectual, spiritual and moral life of mankind, the overcoming of illiteracy and the advance of scientific knowledge are matters for rejoicing.
Who, with any generosity of mind and spirit, can fail to experience joy and pride in the achievements of our common humanity, when he observes the USSR and the Eastern European countries, so backward in all respects until recent times, building social and economic systems that create material welfare for all, as a basis on which universal higher education can be built?
Who, with a spark of human feeling in his breast, can fail to be moved by the spectacle of China, comprising one fourth of the human race, oppressed, humiliated, downtrodden and illiterate for centuries, moving with giant strides along the same path?
Who, on the other hand, can fail to experience disquiet when lie observes wealthy countries like the U.S.A., Britain or Australia, with advanced industrial systems, failing to organise their social and economic life so that potential talent is developed to the full and made available in the community interest? The growth of delinquency, the hysterical unbalance of so many of our youth, the large percentage of children leaving school with only a “comic-book standard” of literacy, the waste of so much talent, are, rightly, matters of deep concern for parents and teachers in fact for everyone with a social conscience.
What has been described as the “crisis in education” has deep roots in our social institutions and way of life.
This pamphlet is an attempt to present the problem in a number of its aspects, as seen by a teacher who is also a Communist. It is in no sense intended as a comprehensive statement on education or as a final judgment, but as a contribution to the national discussion that is proceeding. It deals primarily with general aspects of education at the primary, secondary and tertiary stage. Specialist education in various fields — technology, agriculture, research and the like — requires special examination and discussion. It is the purpose of the pamphlet to present a general argument, from which it is hoped numerous specialised studies could arise.
Naturally, also, as a teacher and a Communist, the writer is concerned with answers, with solutions to the problems, both short range ones, and others that go more deeply and involve profound changes in the social structure — in a word, with an immediate programme that can be achieved within the framework of the present social system, and with the establishment of a socialist Australia as a means of establishing basic solutions.
The document has been read in manuscript by some hundreds of people Communists, educationists at primary, secondary and tertiary level, trade unionists, scientists, housewives and others. A great number have made valuable corrections and additions to the original script. Many of these have been included, and the original text has been substantially modified.
In this sense, the document, as it appears, is the result of collective effort, though the writer accepts full responsibility for the material in its final form.
I have to express my warmest thanks to my many collaborators, for their passionate interest in the subject, and the deep thought most of them have given to it. I hope that this is a good augury for the pamphlet, and that it will provoke wide and deep discussion; not because of any particular merit it may possess, but, so that the social conscience of our people may be further disturbed, and that our children, especially the underprivileged ones, the victims of an inequitable social system, may benefit by sweeping educational improvements; and that further steps be taken towards making available to the community, the talent of our young people, so much of which at present lies fallow for lack of cultivation.
W.E. Gollan.