The Perth Mint and Australia Post are pleased to present this stamp and coin cover which features the 150th anniversary of education.

The Education Act was passed in Victoria on 17 December 1872. This legislation made the colony one of the first jurisdictions in the world to offer free, compulsory and secular education to its children. Public education was now administered by the centralised Victorian Department of Education. Subsequent to the Act, education was free, children were obliged to attend school from the age of 6 to 15, and secular instruction promoted fairness and harmony in a society then riven by sectarianism.

Before 1872 most schools were controlled by churches or were privately operated, and many children were not receiving an education at all. By 1908, all six states of the Commonwealth of Australia had centralised government departments administering free, compulsory and secular education. Today, Australia has a robust public education system, with the majority of children attending public government schools. 

Each coin portrays a representation of an early Australian school house with a teacher and students.

• 1 Dollar ($1)
• $1.10 Postage Stamp
• Issue Limit 7000