Editorial 27 March 2001
Surpluses melting, jobs flagging, government rickety--prospects for increased spending on education and science look dim, almost black. Consider then the nation's prospects toward the end of 1942. Desperate fighting for Kokoda, the 9th Division engaged at el Alamein, young women called up for war work, Australian forces gobbling money, some food rationed. An unlikely time to be thinking of spending money on brain games. And yet, in December 1942, the Department of Post-War Reconstruction was established with Ben Chifley as Minister.
Post-War Reconstruction was a misnomer. It suggested repairing infrastructure, catching up on maintenance. In fact, it was a forward-looking outfit and one of its main jobs was to prepare to educate the men and women when they came home. To appreciate the boldness of the policy it is necessary to go back to the 30s. Australia was in a post-colonial, post-depression mode. Tertiary education was for the fortunate few. Even secondary education was not for everyone. Most schoolboys and girls went to work after their intermediate--about age 15. That's when most family support had to end. More importantly, it was felt more useful to cultivate wheatfields and sheep pastures than to cultivate brains. Literacy, yes. Numeracy--nobody had heard the word. Add up, subtract, keep books of account, master the internal combustion engine--such were the demands on youngsters who wanted better than labouring jobs.
The war changed much. Higher technologies had to be mastered. Thousands and thousands of young men went to more developed countries and saw what could be done--if you knew how. And somewhere in the universities and in Canberra were a few people who envisaged higher education not only as a reward to returnees but as an essential investment for the future of the nation.
So toward the end of 1945, the Department of Post-War Reconstruction was ready to offer courses to returnees, most of whom would never have had an opportunity to exploit their mental potential in the pre-world time. Chif was by then Prime Minister and a gent called Dedman was in charge of Post-War Reconstruction. He must have been backed by some unusually efficient civil servants because when the men came out of uniform they were presented with options beyond their dreams. What? You had not matriculated before enlisting? Special schools were ready to teach you right up to the examination. What? You had matriculated but had never gone to uni? Faculties would bust their sides to accommodate you. What? You couldn't live on air? Living allowances were available. What? You'd married during the war? Family allowances were there to keep wives and babies. The allowances were pretty thin but they were adequate for the young and determined.
Returnees were not required to pass stringent tests to enter courses. All that was required was some evidence that they had a fair chance of making the grade. Men in their thousands and a few women saw opportunity and grabbed it.
Evidence of the changes brought about by the Dept of P-W R's investment in young minds has probably never been collected. It's doubtful if a coherent account could be made of such a widespread scheme. Let me give two real life stories.
S.S. was a young teacher in North Queensland when he enlisted. He'd had normal teachers' college training and that was that. His prospects for advancement negligible; his chances of obtaining a degree were slim. Virtually invisible. His good and lively mind was likely to stay on the rails. After discharge he took his opportunity, did Hons Science at the University of Queensland, became a geo-physicist with more than predictable success in oil exploration. The investment in him paid dividends.
W.F. scraped into the RAAF with just enough maths to get his navigator's wing. He never lost his way, always brought his aircraft home on time. But wartime navigation wasn't really enough for post-war aviation. He took a degree in science, found his way into QANTAS, flew as navigator for several years, went into route planning and eventually operations. The investment in him enlarged his life and paid dividends.
Not all beneficiaries went into technological fields. The system took raw material and turned out lawyers, lecturers, editors. It enhanced the teaching skills of some who'd have been confined to elementary work. It even produced a handful of those rare birds called actuaries.
Overall, Australia got a generation of brain-developed citizens, most of whom would have languished under pre-war constraints. They made it possible for the country to upgrade itself from post-colonial mores, to cope with the demands of the second half of the 20th century.
And much of it was due to a national enterprise born in 1942 when money -- what money? Money was gushing out in the fight for bare survival. What a time to talk about spending money on education! That was a time when first things had to come first, not luxuries such as education.
Just like now.
Addendum: In 1946 the country was scrounging around for money to pay off war debts. Housing was horribly short. Railways were ramshackle, roads were worse. Federal Parliament took another bold step. It legislated to establish the Australian National University in Canberra, as a research establishment to begin with. Extravagance or investment?
Moral: a nation is never so strapped for cash that it can't find some money to bet on education.
Harry
Robinson
Harob@Internet.net.au
(Harry Robinson is a free lance feature writer who has contributed to many
of Australia's major publications over the past 35 years. "You could call
me a tramp...I have tramped across media and from place to place so wantonly
that my reward is a media swag.")