A month of Schools and Education in the Avoca District

In June I posted twenty-nine articles about schools and schooling in the
Avoca district.

Schooling in Victoria was transformed by the Education Act 1872, which
made it free, secular, and compulsory for children from six to fifteen:
tuition fees were abolished so that poverty would not be a barrier to
learning; religious instruction was placed outside the common
curriculum; and children were required to attend school, with penalties
for their absence.

Census data reveals the rapidity with which these reforms were effected
in the Shire of Avoca. In 1871, only 52 per cent of children aged five
to fourteen could read and write, compared with 64 per cent in Victoria
as a whole. [When the Act was passed?] almost one child in five in the
district could neither read nor write. By 1881, however, the proportion
of Avoca children able to read and write had risen to 84 per cent, above
the Victorian average of 79 per cent. The proportion unable to read at
all had fallen to less than 5 per cent, compared with 10 per cent statewide.

The expectations of the framers of the Education Act were most
definitely realised in the Avoca district, bringing educational
opportunity to families who a generation earlier had little access to
formal schooling.