Hawthorn Teachers College is a polyonymous institution which until 1996 focussed on training teachers for technical schools in Victoria, Australia, including both academic subjects and trades, for the expanding technical school system post-WWII, and now trains international students for the University of Melbourne.
Since 1951 the appellation of this entity has been changed with location and status, from Technical Teachers' Training Centre, to Hawthorn Technical Teacher's College, The State College of Victoria at Hawthorn, Hawthorn Institute of Education, to Hawthorn-Melbourne, and has been informally known as Hawthorn Teachers College and Hawthorn College of Advanced Education.
Following the Education Act of 1910, the expansion of state technical schools in Victoria created an urgent demand for specialist teachers in mathematics, science, engineering, arts, and trades, a need initially met through a student teacher training scheme, in which promising technical school students combined specialist studies with limited pedagogical instruction and classroom teaching. After completing their technical courses, these student teachers undertook periods of industry or trade experience before being appointed as classified teachers.
In 1937–38, the original scheme was replaced by a more structured system in which qualified tradesmen who had completed apprenticeships and accrued four to five years as journeymen were selected as student instructors and enrolled in a two-year, part-time evening teacher-training program prior to classification. At the same time, academically promising students in areas such as art, science, mathematics, and engineering were awarded technical teaching scholarships, requiring completion of diploma studies followed by two years of industrial experience. Pedagogical training continued in evening classes during industry placement and early teaching appointments. [1]
A major reorganisation of teacher recruitment in 1951 replaced teaching scholarships with a technical studentship system. [2] In 1952, the first day-training course for studentship holders commenced at the newly established Technical Teachers' Training Centre, located within Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT). Attendance initially comprised two and a half days per week. In 1954, it was officially granted the status of a teachers' college by the Victorian Education Department, and in April 1955 the first principal was appointed, marking the institution's transition from a training scheme to a recognised tertiary college. Between 1952 and 1973, annual enrolments expanded dramatically, from 57 students to over 1,100. Physical accommodation struggled to keep pace when, initially confined to a single lecture room, the college progressively occupied additional borrowed spaces at Melbourne Technical College. In September 1957, the college relocated to Toorak, occupying former premises of the Toorak Primary Teachers' College and establishing an independent physical identity. [1] By 1964, however, these facilities proved inadequate, necessitating further dispersal of classes to external venues. In late 1966, additional accommodation became available at Lansell Road, Toorak in buildings formerly used by the Occupational Therapy School of Victoria
During the 1950s and 1960s, training programs were progressively expanded. Evening courses for student instructors were converted into full day-training programs between 1953 and 1956. Further extensions followed in 1966–67, increasing weekly attendance requirements. By 1970, studentship holders attended the college three days per week, reflecting a shift toward more intensive professional preparation. In August 1970, the college moved moved to a purpose-built facility on Auburn Road, Hawthorn, largely financed through Commonwealth grants. The campus incorporated modern facilities including a multipurpose hall, squash courts, cafeteria, common rooms, and a theatrette, alongside advanced audio-visual and closed-circuit television infrastructure. [1]
Under the State College of Victoria Act of 1972 Hawthorn Technical Teacher's College became The State College of Victoria at Hawthorn (or 'State College, Hawthorn') in 1973. The Victorian Post-Secondary Education Act in the late 1970s made the Hawthorn Institute of Education an independent institution training educators for TAFE (Technical and Further Education) Colleges [3] and governed by its own statutory council. In 1975, enrolments exceeded 1,200 students. [1] TAFE teachers' Information needs met through library resources began with a 1978 project carried out by the State College of Victoria at Hawthorn identifying print and non-print resource materials relevant to TAFE teacher preparation and development, resulting in a master subject and title file of library holdings of participating colleges, and from British and American sources. [4] [5]
Like other teacher's colleges with an art education stream, Hawthorn State College established a significant art collection focused primarily on Australian printmaking. The collection, later referred to as the Hawthorn Institute of Education Collection, includes works by prominent 20th-century Australian artists, among them being: Ian Armstrong, Ray Beattie, Brian Blanchflower, Barbara Brash, [6] Geoffrey Brown, Jack Courier, Astrid Dahl, Ruth Faerber, Robert Grieve, Sue Grounds, Barbara Hanrahan, Noela Hjorth, Louis Kahan, Roger Kemp, Grahame King, Hertha Kluge-Pott, Mary Macqueen, Ann Newmarch, and Eric Thake. [7] Following the 1991 merger of the Hawthorn Institute of Education with the University of Melbourne, some of these works were incorporated the University of Melbourne Art Collection and the Ian Potter Museum of Art which manages it. In 2022, when the University sold the surplus Hawthorn campus site, many artworks previously displayed there were either relocated to other campuses or moved into permanent storage within the University's centralised cultural collections. [8]
In the mid-1970s students expressed dissatisfaction with the lack real-world experience in one-year post-graduate diploma in education programs and Hawthorn, along with a number of Australian teacher education institutions introduced school-based teacher programs, now commonplace; small pilot programs alternative to the mainstream program and then conducted only partly in schools, one being the Ballam Park school-based program among eleven such programs introduced at the State College of Victoria at Hawthorn in 1975. [9] [10]
In the 1980s, despite threats to close the college down on recommendations of the Review of Commonwealth Functions, [11] Hawthorn served to address what principle Gordon Bail saw as a "critical shortage" of technical teachers, [12] advised the department on sport in primary education, [13] [14] initiated the training of teachers in traffic education for young students, [15] and with Dr Maurice Brygel, who advised on health education at the college, collaborated in developed a pioneering video training series. [16] Tech Talk, an eight-part Channel 0 television programs hosted by Michael Schildberger, was aimed at teenagers seeking technical career because of the paucity of information on the availability of technical education, and was produced by Ian Gonella in association with the Hawthorn college. [17] Norman Lacy MP, Assistant Minister of Education opened the seminar for Special Assistance Resource Teachers at the college on 15 December 1980. The National TAFE Teacher Education Conference was held at Hawthorn in 1981, [18] [19] and College publications supported the work of the Australian Council for Educational Research. [20]
In 1982 Federal Minister for Education in the Liberal Fraser Government, Senator Baume indicated a resolution to withdraw funding from six Colleges of Advanced Education nationally unless they moved to amalgamate, and in Victoria (whose government was Labor) those included Hawthorn, Melbourne State College, and the Institute of Early Childhood Development. Victorian Minister for Education, Robert Fordham, responded with efforts that he felt could be "educationally sound" and was exploring the amalgamation of Hawthorn Institute with the Melbourne State College. [21]
Under the Victorian Post-Secondary Education Act, the Hawthorn Institute of Education was proclaimed in 1982. While it continued to train technical teachers locally, various centres were then created to serve the Hawthorn Institute's international clientele: [22]
The 1985 Australian Bureau of Statistics annual report identified Hawthorn Institute of Education as "one of Australia's most important training centres for technical teachers, instructors, and trainees," its courses being broad, expanding and relevant to specialist students, having developed from early beginnings as the Technical Teachers' Training Centre and evolving through a number of iterations "to its present position as a leading college of advanced education". [23]
The report noted that in TAFE teacher education and technical training Hawthorn utilised its links with educational institutions national and international and to the public and private sectors of industry and commerce. In 1985 it offered two courses in initial teacher training — the Diploma of Technical Teaching and the Graduate Diploma in Education, for adults already expert in a vocation other than teaching and with mature experience of responsibility, through courses appropriate to the needs of such recruits in their adult status. In-service Staff Development in colleges and schools, was offered through: INSERT (In-Service Education and Training), a co-ordinating unit of purpose-oriented programmes of workshops, short courses, units of study, and curriculum assistance, both on campus at Hawthorn and in any individual student's own organisation; post-initial award courses focusing on teacher development, with included the Graduate Diploma in Graphic Communication Education, Graphic Diploma in Educational Studies in the area of Student Care, and Bachelor of Education (Technical); and instruction in educational management and administration in a Graduate Dipioma in Educational Administration, and support consultations and short programmes in the Institute's Centre for Educational Administration and Management. Hawthorn also served industry and commerce through instructor training, offering modules for vocational training instructor qualifications, and programs in materials development, research into training, and consultancy services addressing training matters.
Australia's near neighbours, the ASEAN/South Pacific countries, the ABS reports, regarded Hawthorn as a valued secondary and post-secondary technical/vocational education (TAFE) provider, important to the economic and social development of their countries. Hawthorn was involved in the Indonesia/Australian Technical Education Project for the Australian Development Assistance Bureau (ADAB), an agency of the Department of Foreign Affairs, providing advice to the Director of Technical and Vocational Education on curriculum development and teacher training; the equipping, planning, and education development of a Middle Technical School at Cilacap; training of staff for the Vocational Education Department Centre (and Technical Teacher Training Centre) at Bandung; and at Jakarta, in particular for the Management and Technical Centre. [23]
The college hosted the launch of the Bicentennial Futures Education Project in 1986, at which the Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Janine Haines, and the Minister for Science, Mr Barry Jones, addressed educators, industrialists, bureaucrats, [24] and at which then Minister for Education, Senator Susan Ryan decried the low retention rates of students in late secondary years. [25] In 1989, Hawthorn lecturers were commissioned to undertake an expert evaluation of Mount Scopus College. [26]
When the college was affiliated with the University of Melbourne in 1991, [27] Geography teacher and associate of the Hawthorn Institute of Education Dr Kevin Blachford [28] spoke on the value of relevant and diverse curricula, teachers who treated students as individuals, encouraged questioning and the "expression of a wide range of talents," who shared resources and mutual feedback and actively devised teaching strategies. [29]
The college formally amalgamated with the University of Melbourne in 1996. [30] "Hawthorn-Melbourne" moved in 2024 to a new campus at 333 Exhibition Street, in the Melbourne CBD. [31] Hawthorn-Melbourne is a specialist institutional provider of English language intensive courses through which it prepares international students for further study in Australia and as pathway for international students to tertiary institutions and high schools. [32]
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