Encouragement of Local Control in National Education, New South Wales,1848‐1866 Available to Purchase

Argues that school boards were introduced and retained during the 19 foundational years of state education in New South Wales, not as token partners or mere money‐raisers, but as integral parts of the school system. Presents illustrations of the length to which the Board of National Education went to sustain local authority in support of the claim that the Board upheld liberal principles by taking seriously the role of school boards. Shows the successes of local participation in frontier conditions to have been sufficient to justify the Board′s encouragement of local control. Concludes that there was a complexity of interrelations inherent in the maintenance of local authority and that, contrary to what most historians have supposed hitherto, the policy pursued was not one of unalloyed centralism.