Submission – Beth Marsden

This submission by Dr Beth Marsden, Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Deep History, School of History, Australian National University, responds to the 2023 issues paper on education – schooling.

The submission argues that schools have been used to further the aims of settler colonialism, including the dispossession of Aboriginal people of land, children, and culture. It also says that recognition of this injustice serve as the starting point for histories of education, so too must contemporary education research, policy development, pre-service teacher training, and teacher professional development start and finish at this point.

This submission refers to some of the historical systemic educational injustices enacted by state and non-state entities in Victoria. It makes particular reference to the Victorian Education Department, the Aborigines Protection Board and the Aborigines Welfare Board, as well as non-state, corporate schools, commonly referred to as private or grammar schools, mostly between 1900 and 1968.