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Batavian Republic

The Batavian Republic (Bataafse Republiek; République Batave) was the successor state to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 and ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the Dutch throne. From October 1801 onward, it was known as the Batavian Commonwealth (Bataafs Gemenebest). Both names refer to the Germanic tribe of the Batavi, representing both the Dutch ancestry and their ancient quest for liberty in their nationalistic lore.

In early 1795, intervention by the French Republic led to the downfall of the old Dutch Republic. The new republic enjoyed widespread support from the Dutch populace and was the product of a genuine popular revolution. However, it was founded with the armed support of the French Revolutionary Army. The Batavian Republic became a client state, the first of the "sister-republics", and later part of the French Empire of Napoleon. Its politics were deeply influenced by the French, who supported no fewer than three coups d'état to bring the different political factions to power that France favored at different moments in its own political development. Nevertheless, the process of creating a written Dutch constitution was mainly driven by internal political factors and not by French influence until Napoleon forced the Dutch government to accept his brother, Louis Bonaparte, as monarch.

The political, economic, and social reforms that were brought about during the relatively short duration of the Batavian Republic have had a lasting impact. The confederal structure of the old Dutch Republic was permanently replaced by a unitary state. For the first time in Dutch history, the constitution that was adopted in 1798 had a genuinely democratic character. For a time, the Republic was governed democratically, although a coup d'état in 1801 put an authoritarian regime in power after another change to the constitution. The influence of this period helped smooth the transition to a more democratic government in 1848 (the constitutional revision by Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, limiting the power of the king). A type of ministerial government was introduced for the first time in Dutch history and many of the current government departments date their history back to this period.

Though the Batavian Republic was a client state of France, its successive governments tried to maintain a degree of independence and to serve Dutch interests even where they clashed with the interests of the French. This clash of interests led to the eventual demise of the Republic when the short-lived experiment with the regime of "Grand Pensionary" Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck proved unsatisfactory to Napoleon. The subsequent king Louis Bonaparte also refused to follow French dictates, which ultimately led in turn to his downfall in 1810 when the territory was annexed into the French Empire.

Background

Due to the disastrous Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Patriot party revolted against the authoritarian regime of Stadtholder William V but were quickly struck down through the intervention of William's brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia in September 1787. Most Patriots went into exile in France, while The Netherlands' own "ancien régime" strengthened its grip on Dutch government chiefly through the Orangist Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel. This de facto status of Anglo-Prussian protectorate was internationally formalized in 1788 by the Act of Guarantee (for which Great Britain and Prussia acted as guarantors) and the Triple Alliance between the Dutch Republic, Prussia, and Great Britain. The Netherlands was little more than a pawn for the major powers.

The French Revolution embraced many of the political ideas that the Patriots had espoused in their own revolt. The Patriots enthusiastically supported the Revolution, and when the French revolutionary armies started to spread the revolution, the Patriots joined in, hoping to liberate their own country from its authoritarian yoke. The Stadtholder joined the ill-fated First Coalition of countries in their attempt to subdue the suddenly anti-Austrian French First Republic. The Patriots sought French revolutionary aid in their struggle against the stadholder, but did not want to be considered territory conquered by France, but rather a "sister republic". There was open warfare, with the Patriots' cause dependent on its success on the battlefield. With the defeat of allies of the stadholder at Battle of Fleurus, Austria abandoned its interest in the southern Netherlands. French revolutionary forces were able to take advantage of the freezing of rivers in December 1794 and forced the stadholder into exile.

Creation of the Republic
The French Revolutionary War proceeded disastrously for the forces of the Stadtholder. In the severe winter of 1794/95 a French army under General Charles Pichegru, with a Dutch contingent under General Herman Willem Daendels, crossed the great frozen rivers that traditionally protected the Netherlands from invasion. Aided by the fact that a substantial proportion of the Dutch population looked favorably upon the French incursion, and often considered it a liberation, the French were quickly able to break the resistance of the forces of the Stadtholder and his Austrian and British allies. However, in many cities revolution broke out even before the French arrived and Revolutionary Committees took over the city governments, and (provisionally) the national government as well. William was forced to flee to England on a fishing boat on 18 January 1795.

Historical stages of the Republic
The French presented themselves as liberators. But there were acrimonious negotiations between the representatives of the new Batavian Republic and those of the French Republic, and a harsh Treaty of The Hague was concluded on 16 May 1795. In addition to imposing territorial concessions and a huge indemnity, the treaty obligated the Dutch to maintain a French army of occupation of 25,000 men. To fulfill its responsibilities, Dutch financier Pieter Stadnitski joined a committee at the end of July 1795. To beat hyperinflation it was announced that from 3 August French soldiers in the Batavian Republic would be paid in sound Dutch currency and going forward no one could be obliged to accept French assignats. This changed the Dutch republic from a client state of Great Britain and Prussia into a French one; henceforth it would conduct a foreign and military policy dictated by France, where its predecessor had followed British dictates since 1787 (an offensive and defensive alliance of the two republics was part of the treaty). With the treaty, economic policies would in effect also be made subservient to the interests of France, but this did not mean that it lost its independence in all respects. The program of reform that the Dutch revolutionaries attempted to put in place, constrained by the political realities of the French revolution, was mostly driven by Dutch needs and aspirations. The political events in the Netherlands were mainly derived from Dutch initiative, with some notable exceptions. The French were responsible for at least one of the coups d'état, and the French ambassador often acted as a proconsul.

Revolutionary States-General

At first, the revolutionaries used the constitutional machinery of the old confederal republic. They resumed where they had left off after the purge in 1787 of Patriot regents, taking over the offices of the Orangist regents that were now purged in their turn. (For instance, the States of Holland and West Friesland were replaced by having the 18 cities that formally were represented in those States send representatives to a constituent assembly that formally abolished the States and founded a new body, the Provisional Representatives of the People of Holland, that took over the functions of the States of Holland as long as the States General continued to exist ). Though the political make-up of the States General changed appreciably because of this change in personnel, it retained a number of defenders of the old particularist interests. The first order of business of the revolutionaries therefore was to strive for the reform of the confederal state, with its discrimination of the Generality Lands, and of particular minorities (Catholics, Jews), in the direction of a unitary state, in which the minorities would be emancipated, and the old entrenched interests superseded by a more democratic political order. As a first step the representatives of Brabant were admitted to the States General.

However, a grass-roots democratic movement began to form in the Summer of 1795, consisting of popular societies (clubs) and wijkvergaderingen (precinct meetings), demanding popular influence on the government. A kind of parallel government in the form of "general assemblies" sprang up next to the city governments and the provincial States that repeatedly came into conflict with the established order. In the Fall of 1795 the States General started to work on a procedure to peacefully replace itself, "by constitutional means", with a National Assembly that would possess full executive, legislative and constituent powers. This project at first met with sharp resistance from the conservatives. In some cases even force was used (as in Friesland and Groningen) to overcome this opposition. The new National Assembly convened in The Hague on 1 March 1796.

Struggle for a constitution
Like the old revolutionary States-General, the new National Assembly contained radically opposed parties: the unitary democrats, led by Pieter Vreede, Johan Valckenaer and Pieter Paulus, and the federalists, such as Jacob Abraham de Mist and Gerard Willem van Marle. But there was a broad continuum of opinion between these poles. In this force-field the federalists held the upper hand after the sudden demise of Paulus (who might otherwise have acted as a unifier). The conservative federalists were more adept at parliamentary manoeuvering. Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck proved himself especially adept at this. The frustration this engendered among the democrats led them to appeal to popular opinion and to extra-parliamentary action. Meanwhile, the Assembly installed a constitutional commission that in November 1796 presented a report that amounted to a continuation of the old federal arrangements. As this was totally unacceptable to the unitarists, this draft was subsequently amended into its opposite, by a compromise that finally formed a basis for a new Constitution. The Assembly now began discussing other important matters, such as the separation between church and state, and the emancipation of minorities. The organs of the state were to be a bicameral Legislative Corps, to be elected in indirect elections, and a Directory-like Executive of five members. The end result looked much like the French Constitution of 1795. This was approved by the Assembly on 10 May 1797.

The draft-Constitution was to be subjected to a referendum on 8 August 1797, after a very lively campaign in which the French ambassador Noël weighed in with a supportive appeal. This probably contributed to the resounding defeat of the proposal (108,761 votes to 27,995). The Assembly was back at square one. At this moment foreign events in the form of the 18 Fructidor coup of General Pierre Augereau intervened. This brought the more radical faction to power in France, which proved to be ultimately less patient with the vagaries of the Dutch political process, and more prone to intervene. Elections for a second National Assembly returned one in which the balance of power had shifted to the unitarists in the Fall of 1797. Nevertheless, the federalists managed to retain control of the new constitutional commission by a bare majority. This led to more dawdling and the unitarists in the Assembly now came with their own proposal in the form of the Declaration of 43 on 12 December 1797, containing a nine-point manifesto concerning the minimum conditions to which the new constitution should conform.

Now the course of events started to speed up. The new French ambassador Charles-François Delacroix took the side of the radicals. His behavior sufficiently intimidated the opponents of the radical proposals to actually fall in line. The coup that was to follow was therefore in reality superfluous. Nevertheless, the radicals, led by Wybo Fijnje and Anthonie Willem Ockerse, in collaboration with Pierre Auguste Brahain Ducange, the secretary of the French ambassador, now started to plot the coup d'état of 21–22 January 1798, which, with the assistance of General Herman Willem Daendels, put the radicals in power. A rump assembly of about fifty radicals declared itself a Constituante, which in one fell swoop enacted the entire radical program, while the other members of the Assembly were forcibly detained. All provincial sovereignties were repealed; the dissident members of the Assembly expelled; an "interim Executive Directory" empowered; and the constitutional commission reduced to seven radical members.

Though the resulting constitution has sometimes been depicted as a French project, it was actually a result of the constitutional commission's discussions between October 1797 and January 1798. Except for the purge of the electoral rolls of "crypto-Orangists" and other reactionaries, it might therefore have been acceptable for the moderates, obviating the need for the January coup. In any case, the "suggestions" of Delacroix were rejected and the constitutional commission insisted on the following three essential points: universal manhood suffrage, without fiscal qualifications. the right of revision of the constitution at quinquennial intervals by the voters; and finally the rejection of the principle of a bicameral legislature, in which each House would have a separate electoral base.

Though the coup of 22 January 1798 did not bode well for a genuinely democratic approval process for the new constitution (and the French would have preferred going the "safe" way of approval by the rump assembly) the plebiscite that started on 17 March (in the usual form of elections in "primary" assemblies of about 100–500 voters) had a reasonably democratic quality. On 23 April 1798, the Staatsregeling voor het Bataafsche Volk was approved with 153,913 votes against 11,587 (i.e., just 641 more people voted for approval in 1798 than had voted for rejection of the previous draft in 1797; about 50% of the electorate had voted.) The new regime therefore seemed well-grounded in the new doctrine of popular sovereignty.

The new constitution addressed many of the reformist concerns of the Patriots since 1785, including no hereditary offices; no sinecures; and accountability of officials. It also came down on the side of economic liberalism, as opposed to mercantilism, in the economic debate then raging in republican circles, and therefore promised to do away with guilds and internal impediments to trade. The old provincial-repartition system of public finance was to be replaced by a system of national taxation. There was to be a five-man Uitvoerend Bewind as a collective Executive, with eight national Agenten (government ministers) doing the actual Administration, directing Foreign Affairs, Police and Interior, Justice, Finance, War, Navy, National Education, and National Economy. Most importantly, as historian Simon Schama states: "[i]ts central aim was to change the nature of the Dutch state and to bind its new institutions into the framework of an electoral democracy." As such it had an importance that outlasted the Batavian Republic and set up an ideal to emulate for its successor states.

Uitvoerend Bewind
Giddy with their success, the radicals now pushed further. Their legitimacy was already tenuous, because of the way they had seized power. Now they also lost support in the rump-Assembly because of their partisanship. Not wishing to repeat the mistakes of the French Jacobins they moved against the popular political clubs that formed their political base, thereby alienating their most enthusiastic supporters. On the other hand, at the behest of Delacroix they also moved against "counter-revolutionaries" by having purging commissions removing these men from the electoral rolls, further undermining the legitimacy of the regime, as moderate Patriots were also disenfranchised. The final blow was that the new regime reneged on its promise to elect an entirely new Representative Assembly.

Coup d'état of the moderates

Meanwhile, the 22 Floréal coup in France undermined Delacroix, because it inspired more sympathy by French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord for the Dutch opposition members who demanded the ambassador's recall. At the same time, Daendels became disaffected with the regime he had helped put into power because of the depredations of the purging commissions. His French colleague General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert was displeased with the radicals because of conflicts about the co-dominion of Flushing. Finally, the newly appointed Agenten were disturbed about the inefficiency of the Uitvoerend Bewind. All these disaffections came together with the coup on 12 June 1798, of that recidivist, General Daendels, in which he disturbed a dinner party of Delacroix and three members of the Uitvoerend Bewind, violating the diplomatic immunity of the ambassador by putting pistols to his chest. The members of the Representative Assembly were arrested in session.

The fall of the Vreede-Fijnje Bewind opened the way for the actual implementation of the new constitution. The "Interim Directory" that now came to power (consisting of a few of the dissenting Agenten) made haste with organizing elections for the Representative Assembly that convened on 31 July. By the middle of August a new Uitvoerend Bewind had been appointed and the Agenten who had been behind the coup, resumed their original positions. This new regime now started to implement the policies that their radical predecessors had written into the constitution. The coup of June therefore was not a reactionary revolution, but only brought about a change in personnel. Soon most of the people that were arrested at both the January and June coups were released in the spirit of reconciliation that the new regime advocated. The make-up of the Representative Assembly closely resembled that of the second National Assembly of 1797.

The new regime was soon to discover that changes do not easily come about by legislative fiat. The part of the constitution that worked adequately was the experiment with indirect democracy. During the period in which the constitution was in force, the system of primary assemblies that elected delegates who voted for the respective organs of government worked efficiently, and kept the voters engaged. However, exactly because the Republic was a genuine democracy, other goals of the regime were less easy to attain. The elections often put people into office that were very much opposed to the unitary state that was now enshrined in the constitution, and to other innovations that it entailed, or in any case were of a conservative inclination.

This already applied at the top: the constitution contained an age-requirement for the members of the Uitvoerend Bewind, which favored the election of staid Patriot regents, and discriminated against the more talented appointed Agents, like Jacobus Spoors, Gerrit Jan Pijman and Alexander Gogel. The tenor of the Bewind became more conservative in the ensuing years. The agents went to work energetically, however, and started with an onslaught on the old administrative organization of the country, in a deliberate attempt to liquidate the very identity of the old federal structure. The once mighty province of Holland was carved into three pieces: Amstel (Amsterdam and immediate vicinity), Texel (the northern peninsula) and Delf (the southern part); and the other provinces were often merged in larger entities, like Overijssel and Drente into Ouden Yssel, and Frisia and Groningen into the Eems department. The aim was to organize the country into units with equal numbers of primary assemblies (hence the small Amstel department with its large population). The first elections for the administrative organs of these new entities were held in March 1799. But, of course, such a reorganization did not suddenly change the old allegiances of the people living in these areas. In any case, the new local and departmental administrations, though elected, were supposed to execute the policies as centrally laid down by the national government. As the elections often put people in power who represented the old order (like Joan Arend de Vos van Steenwijk in Ouden Yssel) this was exceedingly unlikely. To put it differently, the political effort to attain "national unity" through reconciliation of the diverse Patriot factions of all stripes, got in the way of the effort to create an efficient national unitary state, as envisioned by Gogel.

Public finance reform
The unitary state was not an end in itself, but a means to higher ends. The republic had been in dire financial straits even before the revolution of 1795. The system of public finance that had been the envy of the world in its Golden Age, enabling it to throw far beyond its weight in world politics up to the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, had become a millstone around its neck. By 1713 the public debt of the County of Holland had reached 310 million guilders; the debt of the Generality was 68 million; and the debts of the smaller provinces, and of the cities came on top of this. The debt service of Holland alone in that year required 14 million guilders, which exceeded its regular tax revenue. Most of this humongous public debt was held by Dutch private citizens, so in a sense it merely engendered an internal money circuit in the Dutch economy. However, it was mostly concentrated in the hands of the rentier class, while the debt was serviced by mainly regressive taxes that weighed on the working population. Most importantly, these were taxes levied by the individual provinces, who serviced their own debt, and paid into the Generality coffers according to a repartition schedule last changed in 1616. Attempts to reform this structure during the 18th century were mainly fruitless.

To ameliorate the situation the old Republic maintained a policy of severe austerity during the century, especially economizing on its defense outlays (which in large part explains why its military and political role declined so much). Up to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War this policy succeeded in bringing down the level of debt, but this war brought a large uptick in the public debt: between 1780 and 1794 the province of Holland alone issued 120 million guilders of new bonds. In 1795, its total debt stood at 455 million guilders. To this should be added the debts of the United East India Company and its sister, the WIC, and the five Dutch Admiralties for a total of about 150 million guilders. The other provinces owed 155 million guilders. The grand total in 1795, at the beginning of the Batavian Republic, came to 760 million guilders; this imposed a debt service of 25 million guilders annually. The indemnity of the Treaty of The Hague immediately added 100 million guilders to this total, and the maintenance of the French army of occupation added about 12 million annually (while the other funding requirements of the republic added another 20 million annually). To fulfill its engagements to the French Republic, Pieter Stadnitski joined a committee at the end of July 1795. On August 3 it was announced that from that date French soldiers would be paid in sound Dutch currency and no one could be obliged to accept French assignats anymore. In 1814 the public debt stood at 1.7 billion guilders.

The average ordinary revenue of the republic at this time amounted to between 28 and 35 million guilders. However, since the outbreak of the war in 1793 the expenditure had been running at between 40 and 55 millions. For the year 1800 the republic had to find 78 million guilders for its expenditures. In other words, the new Agent of Finance, Gogel, was faced with a financial emergency. He needed to generate about 50 million guilders annually in ordinary revenue on a permanent basis urgently. Besides, as the Dutch tax system was heavily skewed toward highly regressive indirect taxes, which inordinately burdened the impoverished population, he wanted to change this to a system that depended more on direct (income and wealth) taxes. Finally, he wanted to do away with the provincial differentiation in the taxation, and construct a nationally standardized system. When he put these reform proposals to the Representative Assembly on 30 September 1799, they met with massive resistance. This led to so much delay in its acceptance that by the time it was to be implemented (in 1801) the re-federalisation of the state by the new Staatsbewind regime was already underway. Eventually, Gogel's reforms were only implemented under the successor state of the Kingdom of Holland.

These are (important) examples of instances in which the good intentions of the Uitvoerend Bewind and its Agenten met with the political and economic realities of the times. Other necessary reforms (the abolition of the guilds, the reform of the system of poor relief to mention but a few examples) equally came to nothing. These defeats progressively led to disenchantment of the population with the regime, that already was in an awkward position because it was also brushed with the tar of the depredations of the French "sister republic" that mainly viewed the Batavian Republic as a milk cow, both collectively (in its demands for loans at very low interest rates ) and individually (in the demands of French officials for bribes and other extortions).

Anglo-Russian invasion
The sagging popularity of the Republic did not escape the attention of the British intelligence services. However, because this intelligence was filtered through the eyes of Orangist agents in the Republic and émigrés in England, it was erroneously interpreted as possible support for an Orangist restoration. This caused the miscalculation that led to the ill-fated Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in the peninsula of North Holland in 1799.

Though the expedition ended in failure the members of the Uitvoerend Bewind became very nervous in the days before the Battle of Bergen. The Agent for Foreign Affairs, Van der Goes who had been in favor of distancing the Republic from the French, chose this inopportune moment to secretly approach the King of Prussia as a mediator, with a scheme in which the Hereditary Prince was to become a kind of constitutional monarch in a constitution on the model of the American Constitution. The Republic would revert to its traditional neutrality, while Britain would occupy North Holland, and France Zeeland. The overture was rejected, and it caused a lot of embarrassment in the relations with the French Directory. At this time Napoleon Bonaparte performed his coup of 18 Brumaire, establishing the French Consulate. The Franco-Batavian relations now entered a whole new era.

Pressure for constitutional reform
Though Napoleon had a warlike reputation, his policies in his first years as First Consul were aimed at restoring peace in Europe, albeit at terms favorable to France. The animus of the members of the Second Coalition was mostly against the French Revolution, its ideas and its consequences. By this time Napoleon himself was convinced of their perfidy. Talleyrand and Napoleon therefore saw a possibility of a compromise, in which France would retain its chain of docile client states, but with the "revolutionary" sting removed, to appease the Allies. That unrevolutionary docility was to be assured by constitutions designed to eliminate not only domestic conflict (as was the new French political order), but also any flashes of impertinent nationalism. France therefore embarked on a program of constitutional reform in the dependent republics, first in the Helvetic Republic, where Napoleon as Mediator imposed the Constitution of Malmaison in 1801 (followed by the Second Helvetic Constitution a year later), restoring the old confederal order.

A similar "solution" seemed appropriate for the Batavian Republic. The Batavian government, and its constitution, were particularly disliked by the Consul (no friend of democracy in any case), because of the snub that Amsterdam bankers gave in 1800 to his request for a big loan at the usual generous rate of interest the French expected as a matter of right. He blamed the Uitvoerend Bewind for this, and many other foibles, like undermining the boycott of British goods. To remedy these ills, a new Batavian constitution on the political principles of the Consulate (union, authority, political office for men of ability and social station) was needed. The new French ambassador Charles Louis Huguet, marquis de Sémonville he sent to The Hague in 1799 was just the man for this job.

Meanwhile, even the minds of reformers like Gogel had become receptive to the need for change. The frustrations of the stalemate between unitarist reformers and democratically elected federalist obstructionists had caused a certain disillusionment with democratic politics in the former (the latter were already convinced). An alliance was therefore forming between the would-be reformers, who would like to finally push their reforms through, by "Bonapartist" means, if necessary, and the people who wished to restore the old federal order, in the hands of the old regent class. Director Besier in particular was amenable to a project that would extend executive power (and curtail that of the Assembly), and revert the constitution to federal devolution. With the help of Sémonville he now started to push a project of constitutional reform that followed the French Constitution of the Year VIII in important respects: a bicameral legislature would be appointed by a "National College" (akin to the French Sénat conservateur) from a list of names produced by a convoluted system of national elections. This met with little enthusiasm by two of the other Directors François Ermerins and Jean Henri van Swinden, and by the Representative Assembly, that rejected the project on 11 June 1801, by fifty votes to twelve.

Augereau-coup
The majority in the Uitvoerend Bewind (Gerrit Pijman in particular) therefore amended the project in a sense that gave re-federalization even more emphasis. They unilaterally convened the primary assemblies by a proclamation on 14 September 1801, have a referendum on this new draft constitution. The Assembly defiantly ruled this proclamation illegal on 18 September. Then General Augereau (he of the Fructidor-coup), now commander-in-chief of the French forces in the Netherlands, routinely closed the doors of the Assembly (by previous arrangement with Pijman) on 19 September, and arrested the dissident Directors. Despite this military putsch the campaign for the plebiscite took place in an atmosphere of political freedom unthinkable in France. Nevertheless, this did not result in great enthusiasm for the new constitution. When the votes were counted on 1 October, out of 416,619 voters only 16,771 voted in favor and 52,219 against. The Directors then used a sleight of hand that unfortunately would also become familiar in the Dutch constitutional politics of the successor states: they counted the 350,000 abstentions as "tacit affirmations".

Unlike the coup of June 1798, the Augereau coup did present a sharp break with the recent past. The new constitution reduced the role of the legislative branch (which now did not have the right of initiative), and expanded the powers of the Executive, which now became known as the Staatsbewind (Regency of State). The elective principle was reduced to a formality: the Staatsbewind, originally consisting of the three directors taking part in the coup, expanded its membership by co-optation to twelve. This executive then appointed the first 35 members of the legislature. As vacancies arose, these were filled, as far as possible, on a provincial rota and according to national quotas of representatives of each province (much like the old States-General). Except for Holland, the old provinces were reconstituted. The local and provincial administrative organs continued to be elected – no longer by universal manhood suffrage, but by a system of census suffrage.

Most important was the change in personnel of these organs, mostly as a consequence of this electoral change. The "democrats" were mostly replaced by Patriot regents, who had no patience with democracy, and by the old Orangist regents, who did not even have to disguise their allegiance as in early 1801 a convenient amnesty was proclaimed. One surprising example is Egbert Sjuck Gerrold Juckema van Burmania Rengers, the Orangist burgomaster of Leeuwarden before 1795, a notorious reactionary.

The coup represented a counter-revolution. This became clear in the way the iconography of the 1795 revolution disappeared: the epigraph Vrijheid, Gelijkheid, Broederschap (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) which had adorned all official publications, was henceforth removed, and the last Liberty Trees were removed from the town squares. Soon the "good old days" of nepotism and venality were restored. Equally, though the abolition of the guilds formally remained, in practice regulation of crafts and trades was reimposed by local ordinances.

Peace negotiations

Against this background the negotiations for the Treaty of Amiens started in October 1801. The minor participants in the negotiations between Great Britain and France (the Batavian Republic and Spain) were immediately presented with faits accomplis: the preliminary agreement ceded Ceylon, and guaranteed free British shipping to the Cape of Good Hope, without the Dutch even being consulted. The Dutch ambassador in France, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, who acted as the Dutch plenipotentiary, vainly protested that the Treaty of The Hague had guaranteed the Dutch colonies, and that France had promised not to make a separate peace. After this separate peace had been concluded, the British were left to negotiate with the minor French allies separately. This did not mean that the Dutch were completely left to their own devices: whenever French interests seemed to be in danger, France decisively intervened on its own behalf, as in the attempt to deduct the value of the Dutch fleet, surrendered in 1799, that the British had purchased from the Stadtholder, from the indemnification of the Prince of Orange.

That indemnification was an important sideshow in the negotiations. The consequence of the peace treaty was that the Batavian Republic now received international recognition, even by the British, and that the old Dutch Republic was now irreversibly dead. This put an end to all pretensions of the Stadtholder and his heirs, such as they were. It may be important to note that these pretensions were dubious to begin with. The Stadtholder was never the sovereign power in the Netherlands, despite understandable misconceptions by foreigners, who may have thought that a country needed a head of state, and the Stadtholder was it. Instead he was an officeholder, appointed by the provincial States, who also was captain-general and admiral-general of the Union (there was originally no stadtholder on the confederal level).

In the Orangist revolution of 1747 this office had been revamped to "Stadhouder-generaal" and made hereditary, and after the Prussian intervention of 1787 the powers of the Stadtholder had become dictatorial. But formally the States General had been sovereign since 1588, and the Stadtholder was merely their "first servant". The British may have entertained certain fantasies about his formal status, but never seriously considered it. An example of this would the British acceptance of the surrender of the Batavian fleet in the name of the Stadtholder in 1799, as though he was a sovereign prince. But this was all make-believe, and it ended with the peace of 1802 (though it was revived in 1813).

The Prince had reason to feel aggrieved by this. He did have large patrimonial estates in the Netherlands that now were forfeit. Besides, the loss of his hereditary offices entailed a loss of income. According to his own calculations the arrears in all these incomes since 1795 amounted to 4 million guilders. The Staatsbewind refused to pay this, or any sum, point blank, and the peace treaty specifically exempted the Dutch from paying anything. Instead, an arrangement between the French, British and Prussians (the former stadtholder's champions ) in the matter was reached that in return for dropping any and all claims William was to be compensated with the abbatial domains of Fulda and Corvey Abbey (see also Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda).

Short interlude of peace
The Treaty restored most of the colonies that had been captured by the British since 1795, except Ceylon, but including the Cape Colony. This now made the attempts in the Asiatic Council, which had replaced the Directorate of the VOC in 1799, to reform the management of the colonies, more urgent. Dirk van Hogendorp was commissioned to write a proposal, that met with considerable enthusiasm from the more progressive elements on the council, like Samuel Iperusz. Wiselius and J.H.Neethling. He proposed to abolish all perquisites and sinecures; to permit private trade; to permit native subjects to own private property; to substitute the "land levies" by a regulated land tax; and the abolition of all seigneurial rights in the colonies. This met with overwhelming resistance from vested interests. When a new Charter for the colonies was promulgated, Hogendorp's proposals had been whittled down to insignificance. The vestigial democrats on the Council were now purged in favor of Orangist reactionaries like Hendrik Mollerus, and Hendrik Van Stralen. In any case, the Republic did not enjoy the possession of its colonies for long. After the resumption of hostilities in 1803 the returned colonies in most cases were soon recaptured by the British. Java, however, remained Dutch until 1811.

Another potentially important consequence of the peace might have been that a number of provisions of the Treaty of The Hague, that had been conditional on a peace, like the reduction of the French army of occupation, would now have become operational. However, the First Consul proved reluctant to reduce the numbers of French troops, or return the port of Flushing, for the good of the Dutch as he pointed out, as they needed many of their own troops in their restored colonies, so the "protection" of the French troops was considered necessary. On the other hand, the departure of the French troops was an indispensable point for the British as they could not allow the Netherlands to be dominated by a hostile power, and the Batavian Republic was incapable of defending its own neutrality. This was to be an insoluble dilemma in the coming years.

Real advantages of the peace came in the economic field. As an open economy, the Republic needed unhindered trade. It was heavily dependent on exports of agricultural products to the British markets, and on its services sector (especially its large merchant fleet, and the banking sector), whereas its industry (whatever remained of it after a century of being confronted by foreign protectionism) also was dependent on exports. All these sectors had suffered enormously from the war: the British blockade and French and British privateering had almost brought marine trade to a standstill, whereas a commercial treaty with France (which would have ended French discrimination of Dutch trade in industrial goods) proved an ever-receding fata morgana. True, much of the trade had shifted to flags of convenience (especially that of the US and European neutrals like Prussia), but the peace made the resurgence of the Dutch carrying trade fully practicable. Nevertheless, some changes proved irreversible, like the shift of trade patterns to German ports, and the decline of the fisheries.

Invasion preparations and economic warfare
The peace turned out to be of short duration. On 18 May 1803, slightly more than a year after the peace, war resumed. Napoleon was now intent on the destruction of Great Britain by culminating in an ambitious planned invasion. The French expected the Batavian Republic to play a major supporting role in this. As the Franco-Batavian alliance's embodiment, the Staatsbewind was forced to assent to a Convention bringing the total of French and Batavian forces in the Netherlands to 35,000. In addition, 9,000 Batavian troops were slated for the proposed overseas expedition. Even more importantly, the Dutch were to supply five ships-of-the-line, five frigates, 100 gunboats, and 250 flat-bottomed transport craft, capable of holding 60–80 men by December 1803. In total the Dutch were meant to provide transport for 25,000 men and 2,500 horses, the major part of Napoleon's invasion armada, and all at Dutch expense. Napoleon's imposed real burdens on the finances of the Republic and on its economy.

Another real burden was the economic warfare that Napoleon launched against the British, which was answered by a British counter-boycott. This foreshadowed the Continental System which was written into law in 1806. However already in 1803 it started to choke off Dutch trade. Ostensibly, the Staatsbewind did its part by prohibiting the import of all goods from the enemy on 5 July 1803. Later it banned cheese exports and butter. These measures were of little practical effect, since in 1804 the volume of general exports to Britain was nearly equal to that in the last year of peace in 1802. British goods reached Dutch destinations via neutral German ports or disguised as "American cargo". The republic was therefore an important "keyhole into Europe" that undermined the French economic sanctions against Britain. Since the members of the Staatsbewind, and their friends, often profited from this clandestine trade directly, the patience of the French was wearing thin. Matters came to a head when the French commander in the Republic, Auguste de Marmont, ordered in November 1804 that French naval patrols and customs officials were to take over the responsibility for the surveillance of cargoes in Dutch ports, with powers of confiscation without reference to Dutch authorities. TheStaatsbewind forbade any Batavian official to take orders from the French on 23 November 1804.

Last Grand Pensionary and end of the Republic
This act of defiance sealed the fate of yet another of the Batavian regimes. Napoleon had long been dissatisfied with what he viewed as the foot-dragging and inefficiency of the Dutch. As a matter of fact, since the Spring of 1804 informal talks, mediated by Talleyrand, had been under way with the Batavian envoy in Paris, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, who had a good personal rapport with Napoleon (by now emperor). Schimmelpenninck was a power in the Batavian Republic by himself. He had played an important role as the leader of the federalist opposition in the "revolutionary" States-General of 1795, and the first Assembly. Though an opponent of the radicals, he had politically survived the coups of 1798, and served as ambassador to France, and as plenipotentiary to the Amiens negotiations. Now Napoleon saw him as the person to clean the Augean stables of the Dutch client state.

Schimmelpenninck saw himself in the same light. He had long had a woolly vision of a "national conciliation" in the Netherlands, that made him amenable to a rapprochement with conservative and Orangist circles. These were to become his power base. Though Schimmelpenninck was a convinced federalist, he was a pliable character also. When Napoleon indicated that he preferred a centralized organization of the Dutch state (as the re-federalized model of the Staatsbewind had clearly not worked out), he did not hesitate to implement this in his project of a new constitution, that he constructed in the Summer of 1804 in consultation with the Staatsbewind. As a matter of fact, a delegation of the Staatsbewind, consisting of Schimmelpenninck, and members of the Regency Van der Goes (the former Agent) and Van Haersolte (a former Director), presented the case for this draft to Napoleon in November 1804. When the clash about the French customs men therefore took place later in the month, Napoleon came to a speedy decision and soon thereafter the Batavian Republic had a new constitution and government.

On 10 May 1805, Schimmelpenninck was therefore inaugurated as Raadpensionaris (Grand Pensionary) of the Batavian Republic. This venerable title (clearly chosen for sentimental reasons) had little connection with the former office of the States of Holland; as a matter of fact, the new office more resembled that of Stadtholder, though even William V, after 1787, had not possessed the powers Schimmelpenninck was to wield. His was a one-man Executive that would in no way be encumbered by the 19 man Legislative Corps, that had no powers apart from the Pensionary. The Pensionary conducted his business assisted by a Staatsraad, that resembled the French Conseil d'État more than the old Raad van State, and by Secretaries of State, who resembled the Agenten of the Uitvoerend Bewind. Of course, such an important change in the constitution had to receive the imprimatur of the popular will. A plebiscite was duly organized which elicited 14,903 Yes-votes (against 136 Noes) from an electorate of 353,322. The abstentions were counted as "tacit affirmatives" in the now well-established tradition.

Despite such unpromisingly reactionary trappings the Schimmelpenninck regime actually accomplished more in its short existence than the previous regimes had accomplished in the ten years since 1795. This was, of course, mainly due to the diligent preparatory work that Agents like the ubiquitous Gogel; Johannes Goldberg, for National Economy; and Johannes van der Palm, for National Education; had done. Gogel's General Taxation Plan was finally enacted in June 1805; a first government-approved attempt at unification of the Dutch spelling was made; an embryonic Department of Agriculture and Department of Hydraulics were formed, to foreshadow the later government departments; even a Pharmacopeia Batavia started the regulation of drugs; and the School Law of 1806 organized a national system of public elementary education. Most importantly perhaps, the local-government law of July 1805 founded the first Dutch system of public administration.

The French reaction to this flurry of reforms was mixed, however. The very zeal of the program might betoken a renascent nationalism that could work against French interests. The planned invasion of England was cancelled due to a lack of naval superiority, which was only reinforced by the debacle of the Battle of Trafalgar. The Dutch now began to clamor for economies in the form of the return of the Boulogne flotilla, which annoyed Napoleon, because he still had a use for it. The man who had led that flotilla to Boulogne, after repelling a superior British fleet, Carel Hendrik Ver Huell, was now Secretary for the Navy. He had also become a confidant of the emperor, and now engaged in a secret correspondence with Talleyrand and Napoleon. The latter had just concluded the Peace of Pressburg and was busy dividing up Europe in client-kingdoms apportioned to his relatives. He saw a good candidate for such a position in the Netherlands in his brother Louis Bonaparte.

Ver Huell started scheming with his French patrons behind the back of Schimmelpenninck and feeding negative information about the Pensionary that found its way into the French press. Schimmelpenninck's position was weakened by the fact that he was slowly going blind. The Dutch Secretaries of State and the Staatsraad did not have much choice: their only options were a complete extinguishing of the national identity in the form of annexation to the Empire, or the lesser evil of a new kingdom under one of Napoleon's relatives. A Groot Besogne (Grand Commission) was formed to conduct the unequal negotiations with the Emperor. The latter, however, refused to speak with the Commission, and only communicated to them through the intermediary of Ver Huell. Talleyrand had meanwhile drafted a "Treaty" which contained the conditions under which the crown of "Holland" was to be offered to Louis: no union of the crowns; no conscription; a possible commercial treaty with France; and the basic freedoms of the Netherlands (linguistic, religious, judicial) were to be maintained; while the civil list was fixed at the "modest sum" of 1.5 million guilders. The constitution of the Pensionary was actually to be maintained with a few minor alterations (the title of raadpensionaris changed to that of King; and the size of the Staatsraad and the legislative corps nearly doubled).

The Commission was not allowed to refer back to The Hague. Schimmelpenninck made a last-ditch attempt to have the treaty referred to a plebiscite, but he was ignored. He resigned on 4 June 1806. The next day at the Château de Saint-Cloud, after Napoleon had kept them waiting while he received the Turkish ambassador, the hapless commissioners presented their "petition" to Louis to accept the crown of "Holland", which he graciously did, while Napoleon looked on approvingly.

Aftermath
The Kingdom of Holland lasted only four years. Though Louis performed his role beyond all expectations, and did his best to defend the interests of his subjects, for precisely this reason Napoleon decided that the Netherlands could no longer be denied the benefits of reunion with his Empire, over the objections of Louis. Louis abdicated on 2 July 1810, in favor of his son Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, who reigned for ten days, before the kingdom was finally reunited with the origins of the "alluvial deposits of the French rivers", in the words of Napoleon.

This reunion did not outlast the effects of the disastrous French invasion of Russia and subsequent defeat in the Battle of Leipzig. The Empire melted away, and the independent Netherlands took shape again with every city that the retreating French army of occupation evacuated in the course of 1813. In the ensuing political vacuum a triumvirate of former Orangist regents, led by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, invited the former Hereditary Prince (the old Stadtholder had died in 1806) to assume power as "Sovereign Prince". William VI of Orange landed in Scheveningen on 30 November 1813. He duly established control in the Netherlands and was offered the crown of the combined area of the former 17 provinces of the Netherlands (modern Belgium and the Netherlands) by the Allies in the secret London Protocol (also known as the Eight Articles of London) of 21 June 1814, which he accepted exactly one month later. On 16 March 1815, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was proclaimed.

Historiographical note
According to the British historian Simon Schama, the Batavian Republic has been controversially treated by historians. After the end of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, some historians saw a parallel between the Dutch National Socialist Movement (NSB) and the Patriot revolutionaries, while they pictured William V in the heroic role of Queen Wilhelmina and her government-in-exile. However, Dutch historian Pieter Geyl opposed such comparisons in his Patriotten en NSBers: een historische parallel (1946).

Still, by that time the Batavians had already had a bad press in Dutch history writing. This may be explained by the fact that the old ideological struggle between the monarchically-oriented Orangist party and its successive opponents of a more "republican" bent (going back to at least the conflict between Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and Prince Maurice), of which the Patriots were only the latest incarnation, was being refought in the standard works of 19th-century Dutch historians like Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, who saw plenty to despise in the "popular-sovereignty" philosophy of the Patriot radicals. In his turn Groen was very influential on the way John Lothrop Motley depicted the old Dutch Republic for an American audience.

Motley did not get to deal explicitly with the Batavian Republic, but the way his collaborator William Elliot Griffis dismissed the Patriots speaks for itself: "…whether under the name of the 'Batavian Republic', the Kingdom of Holland, or the provinces of the French empire, the French occupation was virtually a French conquest that had little permanent influence on Dutch history or character."

However most, if not all, characteristics of the current centralized state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands were foreshadowed by the accomplishments of the Batavian Republic, not least the liberal 1848 Constitution. That constitution restored the central tenets of the democratic Staatsregeling of 1798, under the guise of a Constitutional monarchy, as its author Johan Rudolph Thorbecke acknowledged.

title: Batavian Republic


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Education in Australia

Education in Australia encompasses the sectors of early childhood education (preschool) and primary education (primary schools), followed by secondary education (high schools), and finally tertiary education, which includes higher education (universities and other higher education providers) and vocational education (registered training organisations). Regulation and funding of education is primarily the responsibility of the States and territories; however, the Australian Government also plays a funding role.

Education in Australia is compulsory between the ages of four, five, or six and fifteen, sixteen or seventeen, depending on the state or territory and the date of birth.

For primary and secondary education, government schools educate approximately 65 per cent of Australian students, with approximately 35 per cent in non-government schools. At the tertiary level, the majority of Australia's universities are public, and student fees are subsidised through a student loan program where payment becomes due when debtors reach a certain income level.

Underpinned by the Australian Qualifications Framework, implemented in 1995, Australia has adopted a national system of qualifications, encompassing higher education, vocational education and training (VET), and school-based education. For primary and secondary schools, a national Australian Curriculum has been progressively developed and implemented since 2010.

Australia is a leading global provider of education to international students, and in 2012 was ranked as the third-largest provider of international education after the United States and the United Kingdom. Australia has the highest ratio of international students per head of population in the world by a large margin, with 812,000 international students enrolled in the nation's universities and vocational institutions in 2019.

However, Australian students placed 16th in the world in reading, 29th in maths and 17th in science in the 2018 PISA study by the OCED. This continues a sharp decline in educational standards.

The Education Index, published with the UN's Human Development Index in 2018, based on data from 2017, listed Australia as 0.929, the second-highest in the world.

Regulation and funding
The regulation, operation, and funding of education is the responsibility of the states and territories, because the Australian Government does not have a specific constitutional power to pass laws with concerning education. However, the federal government helps to fund non-government schools, helps to fund public universities and subsidises tertiary education through a national student loan scheme, and regulates vocational education providers.

Post-compulsory education is regulated within the Australian Qualifications Framework, a unified system of national qualifications in schools, vocational education and training, and the tertiary education sector.

The Australian Government's involvement in education has been the responsibility of several departments over the years, with the Department of Education, Skills and Employment being formed in 2020.

The academic year in Australia varies between States and institutions; however, it generally runs from late January/early February until early/mid-December for primary and secondary schools, with slight variations in the inter-term holidays       and TAFE colleges,   and from late February until mid-November for universities with seasonal holidays and breaks for each educational institute.

Preschool
Historically, preschool and pre-prep programmes in Australia were relatively unregulated and not compulsory. While still not mandatory for children to attend, the Federal Government has had a focus since 2009 on encouraging families to enrol their children (from around 4 years of age) in a preschool or kindergarten that delivers quality early childhood education and care Federal and state legislation now requires preschool services to implement and deliver programming based on the nationally approved Early Years Learning Framework The first exposure many Australian children have to learn with others outside of traditional parenting is daycare or a parent-run playgroup. This sort of activity is not generally considered schooling, as preschool education is separate from primary school in all states and territories, except Western Australia where pre-school education is taught as part of the primary school system and Victoria where the state framework, the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) covers children from birth to 8 years old, is used by some schools over the national framework. In Queensland, preschool programmes are often called Kindergarten or Pre-Prep and are usually privately run but attract state government funding if run for at least 600 hours a year and delivered by a registered teacher.

Preschools are usually run by the state and territory governments, except in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales where they are more often run by local councils, community groups or private organisations. Preschool is offered to three- to five-year-olds; attendance numbers vary widely between the states, but 85.7% of children attended preschool the year before school. The year before a child is due to attend primary school is the main year for preschool education. This year is far more commonly attended and may take the form of a few hours of activity during weekdays. Most states of Australia now fund government preschools to offer 15 hours per week (600 hours over a year) for each enrolled child in the year before they commence formal schooling

Primary and secondary education
10,584 registered schools were operating in Australia in 2019, of which 7,092 were government schools. As of 2019, government schools educated 65.4% of all students. In 2017, there were just under 282,000 teachers in Australian primary and secondary schools. Of the non-government schools, nearly two-thirds were Catholic schools. The major part of government-run schools' costs is met by the relevant state or territory government. The Australian Government provides the majority of public funding for non-government schools, which is supplemented by states and territories.

Non-government schools, both religious or secular typically charge compulsory tuition and other fees. Government schools provide education without compulsory tuition fees, although many government schools ask for payment of 'voluntary' fees to defray particular expenses.

Regardless of whether a school is government or non-government, it is regulated by the same curriculum standards framework. The framework is administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. Most schools require students to wear prescribed school uniforms. A school year in Australia starts in January and finishes in December.

History of school education in Australia
The first formal education in Australia began when the European convicts and settlers began to build the first public infrastructure, in the 19th century. The first schools were either built by ex-convicts or members of the Church. Beginning in approximately 1905, many children of the Stolen Generations were educated like non-aboriginal children, with the aim of effectively assimilating them into the non-aboriginal community. This was made illegal in 1969.

Compulsory attendance requirements
School education in Australia is compulsory between certain ages as specified by state or territory legislation. Depending on the state or territory, and date of birth of the child, school is compulsory from the age of five to six to the age of fifteen to seventeen.

In the ACT, NSW, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia,  Victoria, and Western Australia,  children are legally required to attend school from the age of six years old, until the minimum leaving age. In Tasmania, the compulsory school starting age is 5 years old. However, most children commence the preliminary year of formal schooling, in Pre-Year 1, between four and a half and five and a half years of age, variously called kindergarten (sometimes called Year K),  reception, preparation (also abbreviated as "prep")  and transition.

, the national apparent retention rate (ARR), a measure of student engagement that provides an indicator of the success of education systems in keeping students in school beyond the minimum leaving age, was 78 per cent for all full-time students in Year 12.

Australian Curriculum
While state and territory governments are responsible for the regulation and delivery of school-based education within their jurisdiction, through the Council of Australian Governments, the Commonwealth Government has, since 2014, played an increasing role in the establishment of the Australian Curriculum that sets the expectations for what all young Australians should be taught, regardless of where they live in Australia or their background. The development of the Australian Curriculum is based on the principles of improving the quality, equity and transparency of Australia's education system. The Australian Curriculum, for pre-Year 1 to Year 10, is made up of the following eight learning areas: English; Mathematics; Science; Humanities and Social Sciences; The Arts; Technologies; Health and Physical Education as well as Languages. In the senior secondary Australian Curriculum, for Year 11 and Year 12, fifteen senior secondary subjects across English, Mathematics, Science, History and Geography were endorsed between 2012 and 2013. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has mandated the achievement standards that describe the quality of learning (including the depth of understanding, the extent of knowledge, and the sophistication of skill) expected of students who have studied the content for each subject.

Types of schools
The types of schools in Australia fall broadly into two categories: government schools, being those schools operated by state or territory departments or agencies; and non-government schools, being those schools that are not operated by government departments or agencies. Non-government schools can be further classified, based on self-identification of the school's affiliation. Non-government schools are grouped for reporting as Catholic schools (including Catholic-affiliated private schools) or private (other non-government schools).

Government schools receive funding from the relevant state or territory government. Non-government schools receive funding from the Australian Government and relevant state or territory government; and in most cases, parents are required to make a co-payment for their child's education.

across primary and secondary education, approximately two-thirds of all school students attended government schools; with the remaining one-third of students educated in non-government schools.

A small portion of students are legally home-schooled, particularly in rural areas.

Primary schools

Also sometimes called infants schools, Australia adopts the UNESCO term of primary school that generally covers a child's education from pre-Year 1 and finish with Year 6. The duration of primary school years varies across each Australian state and territory, with most adopting seven years; except in South Australia, where, until 2022, students finish with Year 7, making the duration of primary school eight years; until they are 11, 12 or 13 years of age. Primary schools focus on developing essential literacy, numeracy and social skills, and provide foundational knowledge to children about the world around them.

Secondary schools
Secondary schools in Australia are also called high schools and colleges (or junior, intermediate, or senior colleges). Secondary schools vary across each Australian state and territory, but they generally cover Year 7 to Year 10 (compulsory period of education) and senior secondary schools continue to Year 12.

Middle schools
In the majority of Australian states and territories, middle schools are relatively uncommon. Students progress from primary school to secondary school. As an alternative to the middle school model, some secondary schools divided their grades into "junior high school" (Years 7, 8, 9 and 10) and "senior high school" (Years 11 and 12). Some have three levels, "junior" (Years 7 and 8), "intermediate" (Years 9 and 10), and "senior" (Years 11 and 12).

In June 2006 the Northern Territory Government introduced a three-tier system featuring middle schools for Year 7 to Year 9 (approximate age 12–15) and high school for Year 10 to Year 12 (approximate age 15–18).

Combined and central schools
In Australia, combined schools are schools that have classes from both primary and secondary year levels. These schools may be located in an urban, regional or rural area and can be government or non-government schools. there were approximately 500 Australian combined government schools and approximately 850 Australian combined non-government schools.

Central schools are predominantly, but not exclusively, government schools located in a rural area that provides both primary and lower secondary education to students, usually concluding at Year 10. there were 62 Australian central schools, and all except one were located in rural New South Wales. In Western Australia, the term district high school is synonymous with central school.

Organisational structures
Schools are broadly categorised into government and non-government schools. The non-government schools are further categorised into Catholic schools and private schools. , 65.7% of students were enrolled in government schools, 19.7% in catholic schools and 14.6% in private schools.

Government schools

Also called state schools or public schools, government schools educate approximately two-thirds of all school students in Australia. If a student elects to attend a government school, they are required to attend a school within their local school district unless the student has dispensation to attend another school, usually approved based on academic merit, specialisation, or other reasons, such as a student disability.

Government schools are run by the respective state government agency. They offer free education; however, many government schools ask parents to pay a contribution fee and a materials and services charge  for stationery, textbooks, sports, uniforms, school camps and other schooling costs that are not covered under government funding. In 2010 the additional cost for schooling was estimated to be on average $316 per year per child.

Government schools may be further categorised into open or comprehensive schools, selective, special, and specialist schools; all defined below. In 2009 the Western Australia government introduced Independent Public Schools to describe a government school that, while a part of the state education system, was granted a higher degree of decision-making authority than a regular government school. A similar reform was introduced in Queensland and, as of December 2018, 250 government schools commenced as independent public schools in Queensland. In February 2014 the then Federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, announced a $70 million Independent Public Schools Initiative to support 1,500 Australian government schools to become more autonomous.

Government hospital schools are located at some major hospitals and provide access to tuition for students who have extended stays in hospitals.

Across Australia, the Federal Department of Education sets the overall national policy and direction for education in Australia. The following state and territory government departments are responsible for the administration of education within their respective jurisdictions:

Non-government schools
Schools from the non-government sector operate under the authority of state or territory governments but are not operated by government education departments. Schools from the non-government sector may operate as individual schools, in small groups or as a system such as those coordinated by the Catholic Education Commission in each state and territory. All non-government schools in Australia receive funding from the Commonwealth government.

Catholic schools

The education system delivered by the Roman Catholic Church in Australia has grown from 18th-century foundations to be the second-biggest provider of school-based education in Australia. , one in five Australian students attended Catholic schools. There are over 1,700 Catholic schools in Australia with more than 750,000 students enrolled, employing almost 60,000 teachers.

Administrative oversight of Catholic education providers varies depending on the origins, ethos, and purpose of each education provider. Oversight of Catholic systemic schools may rest with a Catholic parish, diocese, or archdiocese; while religious institutes have oversight of Catholic independent schools.

The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), established by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference through the Bishops Commission for Catholic Education, is tasked with maintaining liaison with the federal government and other key national education bodies and complements and supports the work of the state and territory Catholic education commissions. While some Catholic schools operate independently via religious institutes, the majority of Catholic schools, called systemic schools, operate under the Canon Law jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical public juridic person, such as a bishop. In practice, the bishop assigns a Catholic Education Office (CEO), Catholic Education Commission, Catholic Schools Offices, or a similar body with daily operational responsibility for the leadership, efficient operation, and management of the Catholic systemic schools which educate in parish primary and regional secondary schools in Australia. These diocesan bodies are charged with the implementation and management of the policies of the diocese and the allocation and administration of the funds provided by the government and private sources to Catholic systemic schools, as well as the financial responsibilities for the administration of salaries for staff members.

Most Catholic schools (96 per cent) are systemically funded, meaning that the government funding they nominally attract is provided to the relevant state Catholic Education Commission for needs-based distribution. Sixty-one Australian Catholic schools are non-systemically funded (independent schools) and receive government grants directly.

Private schools

Private schools are non-government schools that are not operated by government authority and have a system of governance that ensures their independent operation. Such schools are typically operated by an independently elected school council or board of governors and range broadly in the type of school education provided and the socio-economics of the school community served. Some private schools are run by religious institutes; others have no religious affiliation and are driven by a national philosophy (such as international schools), pedagogical philosophy (such as Waldorf-Steiner schools), or specific needs (such as special schools). , including private schools run by Catholic religious institutes, of the 9,477 schools in Australia 1,140 schools (12 per cent) are in the private sector. In the same year, private schools enrolled over 617,000 students or 16 per cent of the Australian student population.

Private school fees can vary from under $100 per month to $3,200, depending on the student's year level, the school's size, and the socioeconomics of the school community. In late 2018 it was reported that the most expensive private schools (such as the APS Schools, the AGSV Schools in Melbourne, the GPS Schools, QGSSSA Schools in Brisbane and the NSW GPS Schools, Combined Associated Schools and the ISA Schools in Sydney and New South Wales) charge fees of up to $500,000 for the thirteen years of private school education.

Australian private schools broadly fall into the following categories:

Special schools
A special school is a school catering for students who have special educational needs due to learning difficulties, physical disabilities, developmental disabilities or social/emotional disturbance, or who are in custody, on remand or in hospital. Special schools may be specifically designed, staffed and resourced to provide appropriate special education for children with additional needs. Students attending special schools generally do not attend any classes in mainstream schools. The schools cater for students with mild, moderate and profound intellectual disabilities, deaf and hard of hearing students, students with Autism and students with a physical disability. Class sizes at specialist schools are smaller than at mainstream schools, and there is a much lower ratio of teaching and support staff to students. Some specialist schools also have therapists on staff. Specialist schools generally already have an accessible environment and curriculum for their student population; this may mean that there are limited subjects on offer.

Selective schools
A selective school is a government school that enrols students based on some sort of selection criteria, usually academic. The term may have different connotations in different systems and is the opposite of an open or comprehensive school, which accepts all students, regardless of aptitude.

In New South Wales, student placement in fully and partially selective high schools is highly competitive, with approximately 3,600 places offered to the 15,000 students who sit the Selective High School Test. there were 47 fully or partially selective government high schools, including 17 fully selective high schools (some of which are co-educational and others provide a single-sex educational environment); 25 partially selective high schools (high schools with both selective and comprehensive classes); four selective agricultural high schools; and one virtual selective high school. Of the 47 schools, 34 are located in greater metropolitan Sydney. Of the government selective high schools in New South Wales, James Ruse Agricultural High School is renowned for its academic achievements and competitiveness, as well as a near-perfect record of all students gaining university admission, especially in medicine, law and science. The school has outperformed every high school in New South Wales in the past 20 years in public university entrance examinations.

In Victoria, selective government high schools select all of their students based on an entrance examination. As of 2011, there were four selective schools: Melbourne High School, Mac.Robertson Girls' High School, Nossal High School and Suzanne Cory High School. In addition, there are three special schools namely Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School, John Monash Science School and Elizabeth Blackburn School of Sciences which cater to students opting for focused education in arts and science respectively.

In Queensland, there are four selective entry high schools. Brisbane State High School, established in 1921, is partially selective; and the three Queensland Academies which are fully selective and were formed during 2007 and 2008. All require entry based on academic entry tests, NAPLAN results, primary school grades, interviews and other considerations.

In Western Australia, selective secondary education (officially named Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) ) is operated by the Western Australian Department of Education through the Gifted and Talented Selective Entrance Programs for Year 7, and subject to limited placement availability for year-levels upward to Year 11. All applicants are required to sit the Academic Selective Entrance Test and possibly complete combined interviews, auditions and/or workshops depending on the program(s) applied for. The programs are categorised into three strands: academic, language, and arts. Eighteen government schools participate in the Gifted and Talented Programs, each specialising in one of the strands. All participating schools are partially selective and partially local intake, except for Perth Modern School which is fully selective.

Specialist schools
Schools that operate specialist education programs exist in all Australian states and territories. These schools are typically associated with the arts or elite sports programs. In South Australia, specialist schools cover the arts, gifted and talented programs, languages, agricultural schools, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, advanced technology project schools, sports schools, and trade training centres. In Victoria, examples of specialist government schools include those focused on science and maths (John Monash Science School), performing arts (Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School), sports (Maribyrnong Secondary College), and leadership and enterprise (The Alpine School). An alternative model is those sporting organisations that deliver specialist programs to a narrow selection of schools, such as Cricket Australia's Specialist School Program to three Western Australian schools.

International schools
In Australia, international schools promote international education and may be operated by the government of the country of origin, the government of the state or territory in which the school is located, or be operated as an private school. International schools include those schools that have received international accreditation such as from the Council of International Schools, the International Baccalaureate Organization, or the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, or other similar organisations. , approximately 80 Australian schools meet that definition, with the vast majority being schools that offered one or more of the International Baccalaureate programmes. Other schools are affiliated with specific cultures or languages, most notably French (e.g. Telopea Park School (ACT), Lycée Condorcet (NSW), Auburn High School (VIC)), German (e.g. German International School Sydney (NSW) and Deutsche Schule Melbourne (VIC)), or Japanese (e.g. Sydney Japanese International School (NSW), The Japanese School of Melbourne (VIC) and The Japanese School in Perth (WA)) schools, including Japanese supplementary weekend schools; or may generally be international in their outlook, including the International Grammar School (NSW) or the International School of Western Australia (WA).

Mixed-sex and single-sex education
In Australia, both government and non-government schools operate co-educational and single-sex educational environments for students. The overwhelming number of schools are co-educational, with a small proportion of government schools operating single-sex schools, sometimes with a separate boys' and girls' school in the same suburb. All government single-sex schools are secondary schools. Examples of adjacent single-sex government secondary schools include Asquith Boys' and Asquith Girls', Canterbury Boys', North Sydney Boys' and North Sydney Girls', Randwick Boys' and Randwick Girls', and Sydney Boys' and Sydney Girls' (all in Sydney); and Melbourne High, Canterbury Girls', and Mac.Robertson Girls' (in Melbourne).

The majority of single-sex schools in Australia are non-government schools, heavily weighted towards private schools, some of which are Catholic private schools. Some Catholic systemic schools are also single-sex schools; however, like government schools, the overwhelming majority are co-educational schools.

Day and boarding schools
In Australia, both government and non-government schools operate day and boarding schools. , of the 10,584 registered schools operating in Australia, approximately 250 schools (or less than 2.5 per cent) were boarding schools. Boarding schools can provide a valuable platform for students to achieve their potential academically along with providing support and guidance with their psychological, social, emotional and spiritual development. Some Australian schools offer gender-specific (boys' [approximately 21 per cent] or girls' [approximately 28 per cent]) and co-educational boarding schools (51 per cent); with multi-modal options, such as full-time boarding and part-time boarding (for example, going home on the weekends) offered by some schools. Some specialist education schools, such as The Australian Ballet School, offer boarding facilities. The largest peak body for boarding schools in Australia, the Australian Boarding Schools Association, claimed that, in 2017, there were 22,815 students in boarding schools covered by the association, an increase from 19,870 in 2014.

Qualifications
Within the context of the Australian Qualifications Framework, each state and territory is responsible for issuing certificates and/or qualifications to secondary students, collectively referred to as the Senior Secondary Certificate of Education. The following table serves as a summary of the qualifications issued by each state or territory:

As an alternative form (or as an addition to) the government-endorsed certification path, students, by approval, may elect to receive certification under the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

Basic skills tests
The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (abbreviated as NAPLAN) is a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered annually to Australian students. These standardised tests assess students' reading, writing, language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. Introduced in 2008, NAPLAN is administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and is overseen by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Education Council. The tests are designed to determine if Australian students are achieving outcomes. The tests are designed to be carried out on the same days across Australia in any given year. Parents can decide whether their children take the test or not. The vast majority of Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students participate. One of the aims of NAPLAN is to prepare young children for competitive examinations.

Provider of school education to international students
In Australia, a student is considered as an international student if he/she studies at an approved educational institution and he/she is not an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident, New Zealand citizen, or a holder of an Australian permanent resident humanitarian visa. Under the, the Australian Government regulates the delivery of school and tertiary education to international students who are granted a student visa to study in Australia. The government maintains the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) and, as of 2018, there were 396 school providers with an overall approved capacity of 88,285 students. While Australia as an education destination showed strong and sustained growth over many years, as of June 2019, school-based education fell by three per cent for the year, and represented approximately three per cent of all international student enrolments; with tertiary education, vocational education and training, and English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) comprised 93 per cent of all enrolments and recorded 21 per cent annual growth.

Government education policy
Despite a substantial increase in government spending per student over ten years (after correcting for inflation), the proportion of students who are proficient in maths, reading and science has actually declined over that same period. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Menzies Research Centre have both concluded that increasing school funding above a basic level has little effect on student proficiency. Instead, they both recommend greater autonomy. That is, the states should merely monitor the performance of the schools. Individual principals should have full authority and responsibility for ensuring student proficiency in core areas.

In 2010 the Gillard government commissioned David Gonski to the chair a committee to review funding of Australian schools. Entitled the Gonski Report, through the Council of Australian Governments the Gillard government sought to implement the National Education Reform Agreement that would deliver an A$9.4 billion school funding plan. Despite some states and territories becoming parties to the Agreement,  the plan was shelved following the 2013 federal election. The Turnbull government commissioned Gonski in 2017 to chair the independent Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, commonly called Gonski 2.0. The government published the report on 30 April 2018. Following negotiation, bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth of Australia with each state and territory commenced on 1 January 2019, with the exception of Victoria, whose bilateral agreement commenced on 1 February 2019. The funding agreements provide states with funding for government schools (20 percent) and non-government schools (80 percent) taking into consideration annual changes in enrolment numbers, indexation and student or school characteristics. A National School Resourcing Board was charged with the responsibility of independently reviewing each state's compliance with the funding agreement(s).

Australian students placed 16th in the world in reading, 29th in maths and 17th in science in the 2018 PISA study by the OCED. The Australian education system has suffered from the years of minimisation of funding, too often relying upon the full fee paying students from abroad across all levels of education, to prop up the short falls created by funding cuts. International full fee paying students, from primary school right through to Australia's universities have shown a slow decline in education standards.

Indigenous primary and secondary education
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are at a significant disadvantage when compared to non-Indigenous Australians across a number of key school educational measures. In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments announced seven "closing the gap" targets, of which four related to education, namely: , the target results were:
 * 1) participation in early childhood education: with the goal of 95 per cent of all Indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025;
 * 2) reading, writing and numeracy levels: with the goal to halve the gap for Indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade (by 2018);
 * 3) Year 12 attainment: with the goal to halve the gap for Indigenous 20–24 year olds in year 12 or equivalent attainment rates (by 2020); and
 * 4) school attendance: with the aim to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous school attendance within five years (by 2018).

Bilingual education in schools
Bilingual education in Australia may be divided into three different types, or target audiences, each having somewhat different purposes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; immigrant (CALD) groups; and English speakers looking to add another language to their education. The first two are interested in language maintenance and language revitalisation for ensuing generations.

The first recorded government support for bilingual education came under the Menzies government in 1950, when the first government schools for Aboriginal students were opened at four sites in the Northern Territory (NT), where instruction "should include English Language, Native Language (where appropriate)". Policies and practices varied in the following years, with the first five pilot programs introduced in 1973 after the Whitlam government came to power and brought in new federal policies.

In the Northern Territory (the jurisdiction with the greatest proportion of Indigenous people, and many remote communities), bilingual programs for Indigenous students begun with Federal Government support in the early 1970s. Yirrkala Community School was identified as the first to undergo bilingual accreditation in 1980, and bilingual students outperformed the non-bilingual students. However, by December 1998 the Northern Territory Government had announced its decision to shift A$3 million away from the 29 bilingual programs to a Territory-wide program teaching English as a second language. Within 12 months though the government had softened its position, after people took to the streets in protest.

From around 2000, most bilingual programs were allowed to continue under the names "two-way education", or "both-ways" learning. Other programs included language maintenance and language revitalisation in remote schools across the NT.

Then on 24 August 2005, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training announced that the government would be "revitalising bi-lingual education" at 15 Community Education Centres: Alekarenge, Angurugu, Borroloola, Gapuwiyak, Gunbalanya, Kalkaringi, Lajamanu, Maningrida, Milingimbi, Ramingining, Ngukurr, Shepherdson College, Numbulwar, Yirrkala and Yuendumu. This revitalisation is conceived as part of an effort aimed at "providing effective education from pre-school through to senior secondary at each of the Territory's 15 Community Education Centres".

However, in October 2008, in the first year of NAPLAN testing, despite the NT Indigenous Education Strategic Plan 2006-2009 supporting bilingual instruction, it was mandated by the NT Government that English should be the language of instruction in all NT schools for the first four hours of the school day. After legal challenges, an AIATSIS Symposium on Bilingual Education in 2009, media coverage and much debate, the policy was replaced by a new policy: "Literacy for Both Worlds", but that was soon withdrawn again. There was intervention by the Australian Human Rights Commission, and in 2012 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs issued a report which included the recommendation that: "Indigenous language education should be introduced to all schools with Aboriginal students, and indigenous languages included as an official Closing the Gap measure".

Prominent schools involved in bilingual education programs in the NT include Yirrkala Community Education Centre (CEC) and Shepherdson College on Galiwin'ku. Yirrkala School and its sister school ignored the government directive, and has continued to teach its "both ways" methodology. The students' first language, Yolngu Matha, is taught alongside English. The method has proven effective against reducing the drop-out rate, and in 2020 eight students were the first in their community to graduate year 12 with scores enabling them to attend university. Yirrkala School and its sister school, Laynhapuy Homelands School, are now being looked to as models for learning in remote traditional communities. Areyonga School, in Areyonga, was still using both-ways education in August 2023, 50 years since it had begun there, teaching in Pitjantjatjara language and culture.

Religious education in government schools
Constitutionally, Australia is a secular country. Section 116 of Chapter V. The States in the Australian Constitution reads: "The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

Nevertheless, Australia maintains one of the highest concentrations of religious schools, when compared with other OECD countries. Historically, the teaching of religion in Australian government schools has been a contentious issue and was a motivator for the foundation of the government schooling system.

While the National School Chaplaincy Programme provides an overarching framework based on pastoral care, not religious instruction, the practices and policies of religious instruction in Australian schools vary significantly from state to state. In New South Wales, the Special Religious Education classes are held in the government school sector that enable students to learn about the beliefs, practices, values and morals of a chosen religion. In Queensland, religious organisations may apply to school principals and, if approved, deliver approved religious instruction programs in government schools. In Victoria, legislation prescribes that government schools must not promote any particular religious practice, denomination or sect, and must be open to adherents of any philosophy, religion or faith. However, individual school principals may permit approved organisations to deliver non-compulsory special religious instruction classes of no more than 30 minutes per week per student, during lunchtime or in the hour before or after usual school hours. In Western Australia, both special religious education (not part of the general curriculum) and general religious education (as part of the general curriculum) are offered in government schools.

School violence
In July 2009, the Queensland Minister for Education said that the rising levels of violence in schools in the state were "totally unacceptable" and that not enough had been done to combat violent behaviour. In Queensland, 55,000 school students were suspended in 2008, nearly a third of which were for "physical misconduct".

In South Australia, 175 violent attacks against students or staff were recorded in 2008. Students were responsible for deliberately causing 3,000 injuries reported by teachers over two years from 2008 to 2009.

ESOS Act
The Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (or ESOS Act) sets out the legal framework governing delivery of education to international students visiting Australia on a student visa.

Tertiary education

Tertiary education (or higher education) in Australia is primarily study at university or a registered training organisation studying Diploma or above in order to receive a qualification or further skills and training. A higher education provider is a body that is established or recognised by or under the law of the Australian Government, a State, the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory. VET providers, both public and private are registered by state and territory governments.

There are 42 universities in Australia: 37 public universities, 3 private universities and 2 international private universities. , the largest university in Australia was Monash University in Melbourne: with five campuses and 75,000 students.

There are non-self-accrediting higher education providers accredited by state and territory authorities, numbering more than 132 as listed on state and territory registers. These include several that are registered in more than one state and territory.

All students doing nationally recognised training need to have a Unique Student Identifier (USI).

International tertiary students
Australia has the highest ratio of international students per head of population in the world by a large margin, with 812,000 international students enrolled in the nation's universities and vocational institutions in 2019. Accordingly, in 2019, international students represented on average 26.7% of the student bodies of Australian universities. International education, therefore, represents one of the country's largest exports and has a pronounced influence on the country's demographics, with a significant proportion of international students remaining in Australia after graduation on various skill and employment visas. The Australian onshore international education sector is predicted to rise to 940,000 by 2025. The biggest source markets for onshore international learner enrolments in 2025 are expected to be China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, Malaysia, Brazil and South Korea. According to a 2016 report by Deloitte Access Economics for the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, higher education and Vocational Education and Training (VET) were projected to be the fastest-growing sectors in onshore international education by 2025. Australian Government is also planning to add another 1.46 billion AUD according to Modern Manufacturing Strategy, which predicts a high jump in job growth and migration of people.

Rankings
36 Australian tertiary educational institutions were listed in the QS World University Rankings for 2021; and 37 institutions were listed in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in the same year. As of 2020, 34 Australian universities were listed in China's Academic Ranking of World Universities ranking, with The University of Melbourne achieving the highest global ranking, at 35th. In the same year, according to the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings, 38 Australian universities were ranked, ranging from the University of Melbourne, at 25th place, to Bond University, at 1133th place.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluation in 2006 ranked the Australian education system as sixth for reading, eighth for science and thirteenth for mathematics, on a worldwide scale including 56 countries. The PISA evaluation in 2009 ranked the Australian education system as sixth for reading, seventh for science and ninth for mathematics, an improvement relative to the 2006 rankings. In 2012, education firm Pearson ranked Australian education as thirteenth in the world.

The Education Index, published with the UN's Human Development Index in 2018, based on data from 2017, listed Australia as 0.929, the second-highest in the world.

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title: Education in Australia