Thread by @ChangeCommons

Following months of organizing, tens of thousands students from hundreds of schools joined Australia’s first national #schoolstrike on September 20 1972. The strike received wide support from different groups (1/)

These groups included the Australian Union of Students, Young Labor organisations, socialist groups such as Resistance and the Communist Party of Australia, and some trade unions.

Common demands included the democratization of education, & transparency around school rules.

#Strikers also wanted increases in education funding and an end to corporal punishment and gender segregation.

In Canberra strikers rallied outside Parliament House, in Perth they gathered at the Supreme Court Gardens. Melbourne at the Treasury Gardens & Brisbane to Roma Street

School ties were burnt during a rally of thousands in Hyde Park Sydney which then moved on to protest outside the NSW Education Department.

Demanding a school gymnasium be built 200 students from Kingsmeadow Highschool in Launceston went on strike & marched to Prospect school.

Having gathered hundreds more strikers from there and the city’s other highschool they wound up at the Launceston Town Hall.

Many rallies also took place within school grounds or on the footpaths outside them.

At Penshurst Girls Highschool in Sydney 400 protested and at Nowra 500 held a sit-in. In the wake of the strike students at MacRobertson Girls High in Melbourne decided to unilaterally abolish school uniforms, leading to 40 of them being suspended.

These photos are from the Sydney rally and appear courtesy of the Search Foundation and the State Library of NSW. To read more about the history of school strikes in Australia visit - commonslibrary.org/when-the-bombs…