Guild Teachers College

The Guild Teachers College was an extension of the teacher training activities of the Teachers Guild of New South Wales, which commenced in 1894. Although the Guild's teacher training activities were discontinued in 1909, after the establishment in 1906 of the Sydney Teachers College, it continued to provide evening courses for teachers employed during the day.

In 1948, the Sydney Teachers College altered its entrance qualifications restricting entry to students, who qualified for a government scholarship and were bonded to teach in government schools. In November 1948 the Teacher Training Committee of the Guild was established to provide training for teachers in independent schools and also to alleviate the post-war shortage of teachers. Between 1949 and 1968 various primary and secondary teacher training part-time evening courses were offered. The Guild provided the only courses which assisted untrained teachers in the Independent Schools to obtain a teaching qualification. The College was self-funded by charging minimum fees.

In 1969 the Teachers Guild consolidated its commitment to teacher education by forming the Guild Teachers College, which opened on 20 July 1970. The College offered a 3 year full-time course leading to the Diploma of the Guild Teachers College. In 1971 it introduced a post-graduate certificate in remedial education and in 1973 a course for teaching migrant English. In 1974 the College was accepted as a College of Advanced Education, qualifying for Federal Government funding. From then on, fees were no longer charged and the College adjusted its course structure to conform to the requirements of the N.S.W. Higher Education Board for State and Commonwealth accreditation of its courses. Despite these changes, it remained strongly focused on the teacher training requirements of the non-government schools.

In 1977, as a condition of government financing, the College became a separate body dissociated from any employing authority, viz., the Teachers Guild, with its own autonomous Council. To effect this change, the College was incorporated on 24 March, 1977, as the Guild Teachers College Limited.

In 1977 the Butland Report on the Future Development of Colleges of Advanced Education in the Inner City Area recommended that the Guild Teachers College be disbanded and form part of a proposed Sydney College of Advanced Education (Sydney CAE or SCAE). After protracted negotiations, these recommendations were accepted by the College. On 1 January, 1982, it joined the SCAE as the Guild Centre - a free-standing, semi-autonomous body with the role of providing study programs and services relevant to the needs of non-government education to the various Institutes of the SCAE.

Following initiatives taken by the Federal Government to radically change the Australian education system, the Sydney College of Advanced Education was disestablished at the end of the 1989 year and its constitutent institutes became part of a new university structure. The Guild Centre then became part of the Faculty of Education of the University of Sydney.