This paper discusses voluntary schools in the former British colonies of Singapore, Malaysia, and Fiji, and the relevance of some aspects of voluntaryism for government schooling in Australia. The first section presents the historical background to the voluntary principle by which schools are owned and operated by non-government agencies assisted by government grants-in-aid. Voluntaryism had been an integral feature of British educational policy for several centuries, and it was exported to British territories. However, after the Second World War, British education policy in Southeast Asia was designed to expand and improve the quality of education in preparation for independence. In Malaysia, post-independence educational policy was directed toward unified multi-racial schooling designed to produce a national Malayan outlook. Singapore, in contrast, has a broader concept of a national school. Several languages are used as media of instruction and voluntary schools have retained a place in the school system. Fiji, on the other hand, retains the same voluntary system of schooling it inherited from the British in 1970 at the time of independence, partially due to the lack of government funds to promote a major development of state or public schools. The aspects of voluntaryism in schooling that would be particularly relevant to the Australian situation are the promotion of a sense of individual identity in schools and the importance of freedom of choice by parents in the schooling of their children. (CG)