NRS-3830 | Subject files [Department of Education]

Full description

This series consists of files relating to the administrative and general maintenance of various educational institutions including Colleges of Advanced Education, Schools of the Arts, technical colleges, welfare farms, special schools and subsidised schools. A number of these subject files deal with policy matters although the majority are concerned with administrative matters, many of a recurrent nature, but exclude matters dealt with on Policy or School files. Also included in this series are files from the Director General and Deputy Director General's office.

The files cover a diverse range of topics such as general policy, budget projections, curriculum development, education of Aboriginal people, personal development- including sex and drug education in schools, religious instruction in schools, major staffing and industrial issues, legislation, conferences, committee meetings, cultural grants, press clippings, teacher training courses, accommodation and school sites, Parent’s and Citizens’ Organisations, Teacher’s Federation representations, samples of Education Week and other special event files, free medical and dental services, school discipline, and grants to Non-Government Schools.

These files were brought together into subject bundles by the Education Department and arranged roughly alphabetically. The arrangement of this series now appears to be a combination of alphabetical, numerical and classified number. The correspondence is incomplete for many subjects, however, some subjects are covered in some detail, for example Parents and Citizens Associations, Schools of the Arts and Teachers' Colleges.

Until an administrative change in 1966 this series was controlled by NRS 3828 Indexes and registers of letters received 1880-1939, and a card index to correspondence files 1940-1966. This rearrangement altered the Department’s record keeping system from two correspondence file series into the three (Subjects, Schools and Policy) that still operate. As a result of this re-organisation, the controlling series are no longer a viable way of accessing the records.