History of Education in Australia

Came across this article yesterday, when I was looking at one of my preferred home education magazine's "Otherways".  I was very interested to discover (and not surprised) that the segregation of families in Australia was deliberate due to the settlements being convict based. 

They also refer to South Australia in the article, in terms of absenteeisms, however I would be interested to know how the education philosophies varied there, as South Australia was the only part of Australia that was never a penal colony (interestingly many people outside of SA seem not to know this part of Australian history).  Certainly our experience of home education in South Australia and Western Australia has been significantly different.  With the SA community focusing on natural learning, and WA focusing on structured class opportunities.  Personally I'm in favour of a blend, but the focus needs to be on learning with the family, rather than being out every day at a class, at least til the children move into a more outward experience of the world, in my opinion.

It does seem to me that many of the local people (there are a significant amount of foreigners here) lack the inward confidence to be authorities in their own lives, and believe in the school system and what it offers, much more than the people we know from home educating in South Australia.  This has resulted in, what seems to me, an enormous range of organised class opportunities for home schoolers.  This  can be very positive, numerous opportunities to learn, with people with expertise, and surrounded by other home schoolers.  However this can turn into another form of school, where kids are dropped off to activities and parents are not involved in their child's education, and the children end up with the same issues of schooled kids (not looking adults in the eye, believing adults don't see them, not choosing to mix with kids outside their age range).  Of course schooled kids don't need to be like this either (it all really comes down to parent involvement.)  Since living in Perth we've met many home schooled young people with these school type issues, and it simply seems to me that their parent's are not raising them to be the authorities in their own lives, and maybe this history of convicts and education explains it a little.  After all, our stories create our cultures.