Jean Blackburn (1919–2001) and Peter Karmel (1922–2008)

Early careers

Graduating with honours degrees during World War II, both Blackburn and Karmel worked in the Commonwealth’s Melbourne-based ‘war’ offices. Karmel worked within Census and Statistics while Blackburn was in the Department of War Organisation of Industry. Karmel soon won a scholarship to Cambridge, where he completed his PhD before returning as an economics lecturer at the University of Melbourne in 1948.

Jean Blackburn was one of the first women to work within the Department of War, and the only woman to reach the level she did. In 1943, Blackburn was able to keep her job at the same pay due to the demands of the war, which was uncommon at the time due to societal rules surrounding the employment of married women.

She also served on the executive of the Council for Women in War Work and advocated for equal rights for women following the war’s end.

Leadership in universities and the community

In peace time, the Blackburn family moved to Adelaide. Busy with three children, Blackburn was president of the New Housewives Association in 1947. Later, she taught and pursued academic studies in education with outstanding results. With co-author Ted Jackson, Blackburn published Australian Wives Today in 1963.

Numerous policy reforms Blackburn had suggested were then taken up by governments, including in childcare, rights to flexible work, the removal of barriers to employment and promotion, and access to tertiary education.

At the same time, Peter Karmel had also moved to Adelaide. In 1950, aged just 28, Karmel was appointed Chair of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Adelaide. He proceeded to lead the establishment of Flinders University in 1966 and Papua New Guinea’s first university in 1969.

Karmel's innovative educational leadership was confirmed by his Buntine Oration in 1962, "widely recognised as the starting point of a new, more interventionist and needs-based stance of Australian public policy in education", according to Robin Ryan in October 2013’s edition of Professional Educator.

Appointed chair of the South Australian Committee of Enquiry into Education in 1969, Karmel sought Blackburn’s membership and acknowledged her writing and influence. They shared the belief that government policy should be for the less well-off and complemented each other’s skills.

The 'Karmel Report' and Girls, School and Society

In Canberra, Karmel worked in tertiary education, including as chair of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission. As chair of the ‘Interim’ Australian Schools Commission, Karmel’s Schools in Australia report of 1973 pioneered new economic data about social and schooling inequalities in Australian schools.

Dubbed ‘The Karmel Report’, it brought about what was then the largest venture in Commonwealth funding for schools. Knowing he could rely on Blackburn’s work, Karmel employed Blackburn, and as economists, they collaborated on the report’s findings and recommendations.

An Australian Schools Commission member, Blackburn was the Deputy Chair and the only woman acting as a full-time commissioner. She was responsible for the implementation of the Disadvantaged Schools Program and other needs-based school funding across Australia.

In 1975, Blackburn was one of the main writers of the Schools Commission’s Girls, School and Society report. It led to national government projects and funding of school-based activities designed to eliminate sexism in learning and schooling outcomes.

‘Blackburn Report’, honours and awards

Following her work with the Commission, Blackburn became universally recognised as an educational reform strategist. She became the first woman in Australia to chair a major education enquiry when employed to investigate post-compulsory schooling in Victoria.

The ‘Blackburn Report’ was published in 1984 and recommended the creation of the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), a two-year certificate that recognised the completion of secondary school and brought together general and vocational education into a single year 12 certificate.

In 1990, Blackburn was appointed the foundation chancellor of the University of Canberra, and in the following year she chaired Victoria’s State Board of Education.

Many have acknowledged the work of Jean Blackburn, and she has been awarded four honorary doctorates. At the University of South Australia’s honorary award ceremony in 1993, Vice-Chancellor Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley declared that Blackburn “has had a most distinguished career as an educational theorist and policy maker”.

“She has always worked from the position that education is a right – a right which a just and democratic society will ensure is available to all citizens.”ⁱ

Jean Blackburn died in 2001 and was posthumously inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women the following year.

‘A great economist’

Peter Karmel was vice-chancellor of the Australian National University (1982–1987), and he received honorary doctorates while continuing to publish research and advise governments for much of his life.

In 2009, Emeritus Professor Geoff Harcourt wrote in Agenda that "Peter was a great economist and public citizen, a humane liberal thinker who always wanted to apply economics to improving the lot of his fellow Australians, especially those who were not as gifted as him, nor as fortunate in their opportunities."

Peter Karmel died in 2008. The Peter Karmel building still stands at the Australian National University in Canberra today.