Australian
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Land Short of People (1947)

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Education and public health education content clip 1, 2

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

The voice-over describes Australia’s education and health services in positive terms. It mentions the challenges of educating children over Australia’s vast distances.

Children play in a sandpit in a playground; others play on swings in a school ground; and another group plays ring-a-ring-a-rosy. Older students are shown entering a home science high school. Boys learn life skills in a swamp by harvesting crops by hand. Students on campus at the University of Sydney are shown.

The camera pans across the exterior of a hospital and its grounds, including the bowling green. The clip ends with a title card: ‘Australia – one of the world’s leading nations, but pioneering still’.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

Narration is a powerful device with which to convey information and shape a story. This clip relies heavily on a persuasive voice-over narration and pleasant, uplifting music to present a positive view of Australia’s public education and health services. The images in the clip support and are shaped by the narration. The narration begins by highlighting the challenges that Australia’s vast distances pose to educating its country’s children. The clip proceeds to illustrate how these challenges have been overcome through listing clear examples – education by correspondence, financial assistance for regional students, technical high schools, free state schools and free universities. This impressive system is then shown to be supported by medical and health services. The cumulative effect of the clip is that the audience agrees with the narrator when he remarks that ‘Australia has shown the way to Britain in some of these social services’.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This black-and-white clip shows Australia’s public education and health systems just after the Second World War. Over scenes of students at school and at university the commentator identifies advantages and problems of the Australian education system. Commentary about education providing technical skills accompanies footage of young people harvesting cane. When the subject changes to public health, hospital buildings are shown and the commentator describes the free services available. An intertitle and orchestral music soundtrack are included.

Educational value points

  • The clip offers a positive portrayal of public education and health services in Australia in 1947, concluding that in some areas 'Australia has shown the way to Britain’. As described in the clip free high-standard education was available at state schools, including vocational schools, and at some universities. The public also had access to free health care via baby health centres and mobile services to schools. Health care was also provided to people in isolated areas.
  • The interest in the clip in Australia’s health system may reflect changes taking place in Britain, where the National Health Service Act (1946) had just been passed, leading to the introduction in 1948 of a publicly funded healthcare system. In Australia it had been recognised in the early 1900s that a good public health system would protect the health of the nation, and many municipalities had, for example, established free baby health clinics by 1914.
  • Students living a long way from schools are identified in the clip as a challenge for the provision of education services, and correspondence schools are depicted as one of the not-entirely satisfactory solutions. Correspondence schools had been established in all states in the 1910s and 20s and by 1947 large numbers of students were enrolled. The schools were in the news at the time, after the worldwide release of the documentary School in the Mailbox (1946).
  • In the 1940s most universities charged fees but one major exception was the University of Western Australia, established in 1911 as the first free university in the British Empire. Politician and newspaper owner Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1848–1916) provided the funding to build the core buildings. Income earned through mineral resources, such as gold and iron ore, provided the capital to firmly establish the University.
  • The Royal Flying Doctor Service, described in the clip as the medical service for the outback, was established in 1928 by the Very Reverend John Flynn (1880–1951) and developed nationally through the 1930s. It was the first organisation of its kind in the world and remains unique for the range of healthcare and emergency services it provides to rural and isolated communities and properties in outback Australia.

This clip starts approximately 14 minutes into the documentary.

This black-and-white clip shows Australia’s public education and health systems just after the Second World War. Over scenes of students at school and at university, the narrator identifies advantages and problems of the Australian education system. Commentary about education providing technical skills accompanies footage of young people harvesting cane. When the subject changes to public health, hospital buildings are shown and the commentator describes the free services available. An intertitle and orchestral music soundtrack are included.
Narrator Education has its own problems in this vast country. In New South Wales alone, over 5,000 children of primary age living in remote places receive instruction by correspondence and throughout the country, 10,000 children are paid allowances to help them to reach school in vehicles or on horseback.

There are home science high schools for girls, and agricultural high schools for boys, which not only give a general education but help to fit children technically for their future life.

Most children go to the free State schools, where the standard of education is high, and there’s a good deal of free university training. Perth, for example, has a free university. Every town has free public health centres, and there’s a Flying Doctor Service for the outback, and mobile hospitals for the schools. Australia has shown the way to Britain in some of these social services.

The clip ends with an intertitle that reads ‘Australia – One of the World’s Leading Nations but Pioneering Still.’