CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 7 Non-Government Schools
7.9 Table 7.6 gives an analysis of class size in non-government schools at primary level, and compares class size in non-government
NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
although they declined in number in 1969, still accounted for nearly three-quarters of all non-government schools.
7.8 With the help of the Association of Independent Schools con-
from parochial schools during their primary years to larger colleges containing both primary and secondary pupils.
7.10 Secondary class sizes are compared between school types in Table 7.7. English classes were used as a basis for the Table, which shows that the most common secondary class size in high and technical high schools was that containing 36-40 pupils in 1969, and over 46 per cent of classes had more than 35 members. In non-government non-Catholic schools the most common class size was that having 26-30 pupils, and less than 6 per cent of classes held more than 35 pupils.
In Catholic secondary schools, a higher proportion of classes than in government schools contained fewer than 26 pupils, and at the other end of the scale there was a higher proportion of very large classes.
Almost 40 per cent of English classes in Catholic schools contained more than 35 pupils, a proportion not very different from that in government schools, but very large classes of 46 and over represented 6 per cent of all classes in Catholic schools as against less than 2 per cent in government schools. The median class was between 34 and 35 in government schools, 33 in Catholic and between 27 and 28 in non- government non-Catholic schools.
7.11 Table 7.8 gives details of class size at fifth-year secondary level in subjects in which the greatest number of classes existed in all school types. At this level classes in Catholic schools were smaller on the whole than in government schools, except that isolated classes of over 50, one of them in English, existed. For every subject non- government non-Catholic schools had more favourable class sizes than either of the other school types.
Table 7.7
CLASS $IzE IN í,o\'ERNМЕNТ AND NоN-Gо%FRNmENТ SECONDARY ScaюоIs Soall AUSTRALIA 1969
High and Non-Government
Technical High Schools Catholic Non-Catholic
per cent per cent per cent
Under 26 14.6 24.2 31.3
26-30 13.7 16.1 40.2
31-35 25.3 20.6 22.7
36-40 31.2 24.1 5.3
41-45 13.4 9.0
46 and over 1.8 6.0 0.4
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
No. of Classes 2,028 199 246
7.12 At both primary and secondary level non-government non- Catholic schools had smaller classes than government or Catholic schools. Catholic schools, while they had a higher proportion of small classes and a smaller median class size than government schools at both levels, also had a higher proportion of very large classes. At least 4,500 primary pupils and 570 secondary pupils in Catholic
NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
schools were being educated in classes containing 46 or more pupils in 1969.
Table 7.8
FIFTm-УEAR SECONDARY CLASSES IN GOVERNMENT AND NON-GOVERNMENT SCнo0LS Sоитн АивтпАLIА 1969
Proportion of Classes i Proportion of Classes having more than 20 Pupils having more than 80 Pupils
English Maths. I Maths. 1I Physics Chemistry
Non-Govern- mcnt Non- Government Catholic Catholic
per cent per cent per cent 83.6 68.4 56.1 85.5 55.5 66.6 80.9 26.6 50.0 79.7 36.4 50.0 71.0 15.4 53.8
ment Non- Non-Govern- Government Catholic Catholic
per cent per cent per cent 41.3 31.6 14.6 54.8 16.6 10.0
47.2 13.3 8.3
49.3 9.1 4.2
41.7 - 11.5
Qualifications of Teachers
7.13 There are no non-government teachers colleges in South Australia other than the Kindergarten Teachers College. Members of religious orders preparing to teach in Catholic schools may train at a college in another State run by a religious order, or in a govern- ment teachers college in South Australia, where they are exempt from fees. There were 121 private students in government teachers colleges in 1970. These students do not receive allowances, they pay a nominal fee if they are not exempt from fees as members of a religious order or as students sponsored by a particular non-government school, and they are not under bond to serve in government schools. Such stu- dents are eligible for Tertiary Teaching Scholarships, which are worth
$200 a year, but it is pointed out in paragraph 16.48 that few private students in fact gain them. Preparation for teaching at secondary level is open to private students through university courses followed by a Diploma in Education, and the Bachelor of Education course at Flinders University is available to intending primary teachers.
However, the great majority of primary teachers in non-government schools will have trained at a teachers college if they have trained in South Australia. Moreover it is likely that, except for members of religious orders, they will have received their training with the sup- port of allowances from the Education Department before trans- ferring to non-government schools.
7.14 Table 7.9 shows the proportion of teachers in non-government schools who have received teacher training. A slightly higher pro- portion of teachers at primary level in non-Catholic than in Catholic schools were trained teachers. Among untrained teachers in Catholic primary schools, about half were lay teachers. At the secondary level a higher proportion of teachers in Catholic than in non-Catholic schools had received some professional training, although more than
half of those with training had prepared to be primary teachers. Over 40 per cent of teachers in non-Catholic secondary schools were un- trained, as were nearly 27 per cent of teachers taking secondary classes in Catholic schools.
Table 7.9
РRorEs ІоNALLY TRAINED TEACHERS IN NON-GOVERNMENT Scнoo[s
Sovтн AyЕпАцА 1969
Primary Teachers Secondary Teachers Catholic Non-Catholic
Schools Schools No. of Teachers who had one or more
years of formal Teacher Training 429 100 Percentage of all Teachers 78 81
Catholic Non-Catholic Schools Schools
244 277
73 (a) 59 (a) Of the 73 per cent, 35 per cent had had secondary training and 38 per cent
primary training.
7.15 The academic qualifications of secondary teachers in Catholic and in non-Catholic non-government schools are set out in Table 7.10.
Art and craft teachers are excluded, and qualifications do not include teachers college diplomas. Under "other tertiary" the qualifications include diplomas in home science, technology and agriculture and other such non-university professional qualifications. The survey covered only 90 per cent of secondary teachers in Catholic schools. In terms of university qualifications secondary teachers in Catholic schools were much more poorly qualified than those in non-govern- ruent non-Catholic schools, as might be expected from the material presented in Table 7.9 which shows the relatively high proportion of teachers in Catholic secondary schools who were primary trained.
Table 7.10
ACADEMIC QUALiFIСATIONs OF SECONDARY TEACHERS IN NON-GOVERNMENT SСНm)Ls Sоцтн AusІRALiА 1969
Catholic Schools Non-Catholic Schools No. Proportion No. Proportion
per cent per cent
Degree 105 33.4 279 59.5
Associate of University of Adelaide 8 2.5 62 13.2
other Teпiary Qualifications 10 3.2 63 13.4
No Tertiary Qualifications
<excluding Teacher Training) 191 60.8 65 13.9
Total 314 100.0 469 100.0
Teachers in government secondary schools were more highly qualified in the proportion who held university qualifications than those in Catholic schools and less highly qualified than those in non-govern- ment non-Catholic schools (see Tables 6.20-6.21).
NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
7.16 A survey of junior science teachers in secondary schools under- taken by the South Australian Science Teachers Association in 1969 covered teachers at first-year, second-year and third-year levels in 9 non- government non-Catholic schools, 14 Catholic schools and 115 gov- ernment schools. Table 7.11 compares the qualifications of science teachers between the school types. Non-government non-Catholic schools had a substantially higher proportion of teachers who were science graduates than either Catholic or government schools. Catholic
Table 7.11
Quлг.iи•iсАтІоNS 0F SCIENCE 'ГEAспERs oF GRADEs VIII Ti X Souтн Ацвпиг.гл 1969
l'roportion of Teachers Proportion of Teachers holding Degrees in who had studied no Type and No. of Schools Science Science at Tertiary Level
per cent per cent
Non-Government Non•Catholic (9) 70 11
Catholic (19) 36 28
Government (115) 32 16
Source: South Australian Teachers Journal, 10th December 1969.
schools had the highest proportion of teachers who had studied no science at tertiary level. The same survey also covered teachers of chemistry at fourth-year level. The non-government non-Catholic schools again had a higher proportion of teachers with a science degree (92 per cent), but at this level the difference between school types was less marked, Catholic schools having 88 per cent of teachers who were science graduates, and government schools 78 per cent.
Table 7.12
Dl3тRuВuTioN OF SECONDARY ENROLMENTS BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOoLs
Sour{ AUSTRALIA 1969 Proportion of all Secondary Enrolments
per cent
Government 83.0
Catholic 8.6
Non-Government Non-Catholic 8.4
Source: Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics.
Proportion of Grade XII Enrolments
per cent 68.2 10.8 21.0
Retention Rates
7.17 The material presented in Table 5.7 compares retention rates between government and non-government schools. Some idea of patterns of retention may also be gained by comparing the total pupil numbers in the three school types with the distribution of grade XII pupils between them. Table 7.12 shows these differences, and high-
lights the significantly higher retention rates of non-government non- Catholic schools.
Stall Turnover
7.18 The staff of non-government non-Catholic schools is con- siderably more stable than that of government schools. In a smaller system organised in separate units what promotion is possible is more likely to occur within the same school. Between 12 and 13 per cent of staff in non-government non-Catholic schools left the school in which they were employed in 1967 and in 1968. This figure is close to that for resignations from the government system in 1968, but con- siderably lower than the one-third of all staff who moved out of the government school in which they were employed in 1968 (see para- graphs 6.64-6.69). Fifty-eight per cent of staff employed as primary teachers in non-government non-Catholic schools had been employed in the school for six or more years, and 44 per cent of secondary teachers. This high level of stability in staffing has the advantage of enabling educational policy to be continuous. It has attendant dis- advantages in the complacency which may develop among people whose experience of different schools is limited. Material covering the length of teachers' service in the school in which they were em- ployed in 1969 was available for Catholic secondary schools. It indi- cated shorter periods of service, suggesting higher turnover. More than one-third of all secondary teachers in Catholic schools in 1969 were in their first year of service in them, and only 22 per cent had been in the school for more than five years.
Teachers' Salaries
7.19 Detailed information was available only for the non-Catholic schools. Within the Catholic system we were informed that, for sec- ondary teachers who were members of religious orders teaching in colleges charging higher fees, a sum of about $2,000 was paid annually to the order to which they belonged. In these schools lay staff were paid rates comparable with those in the government system. At primary level the payment to the order ranged from $750 to $1,154 per teaching member in the case of members of religious orders. The salaries paid to lay teachers at this level in parochial schools were considerably below those paid in government schools, the actual salary being negotiated between individual teachers and the school board employing them. Table 7.13 sets out the salaries paid by non-Catholic non-government schools to their teaching staffs in the second term of 1969. Table 7.13 indicates substantial differences between the salaries paid in boys' and girls' schools. Only 11 per cent of teachers in girls' secondary schools, for example, were paid $5,000 or more, while 73 per cent of such teachers in boys' schools were in this group.
At the time this material was collected, senior masters in government secondary schools were paid $5,320—$5,580, and senior mistresses
$5,092—$5,352. The average enrolment of the 15 non-Catholic schools
NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
surveye'd was 625. Such a school in the government system would have eight promotion positions of the level of senior master and above in a staff of at least 32. The 25 per cent of positions which are paid at a level of $5,092 and more is considerably above that existing in
Table 713
SALmucs of FULL-TIME TEACHERS IN NoN-GoVERNMENT NON-CATHOLIC Sснооls (a) Souт1 AUsTRALIA 1969
Boys' Schools Girls' Schools Co-Educational Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Secondary
Less than $3,000 1 3 8 12 11
$5,000-$3,499 9 11 11 19 12
$3,500-$3,999 14 7 33 43 5
$4,000-$4,999 8 21 6 52 —
$5,000-$5,499 6 58 1 9 2
$5,500-$5,999 3 $6 — 2 4
$6,000-$6,999 2 12 — 1 1
$7,000-$7,999 — 2 — 4 —
$8,000 and above — 5 — — —
All Teachers 43 155 59 142 35
(a) Excluding heads.
non-government non-Catholic girls' secondary schools, but below the proportion of teachers employed even at $5,500 and more in boys' secondary schools in the non-government non-Catholic group of schools. Salary differences between boys' and girls' secondary schools are reflected in lower fees in the latter.
Tuition Fees
7.20 In 1969 the annual tuition fees at primary level in the 15 major metropolitan non-Catholic schools surveyed ranged between $320 and $360 at girls' schools, and between $350 and $500 at boys' schools.
Fees vary according to the level at which the pupil is studying, and in all cases the fees stated here are maximum fees and apply to a full year's tuition as a day pupil. In Catholic primary schools fees ranged between $42 and $51 per annum, most schools charging $45, and re- duced fees applied where more than one child of the same family attended the school, bringing the amount paid for some children to as low as 30c a week or $12 a year. Fees charged at non-government sec- ondary schools in 1970 are summarised in Table 7.14. The highest fees charged were at non-Catholic boys' schools, and fees in Catholic schools were, even at their highest level, below any fees charged in non-Catholic schools.
7.21 For the financial year 1969-70, the recurrent cost per primary