1925 - Australian Government announces establishment of a cadetship scheme in which five or more Cadet Patrol Officers, after a period of practical training in PNG, are selected each year for further training by the Department of Anthropology at Sydney University
1941 – Alf Conlon joins the Australian Army from his job as Sydney University's manpower officer, selecting or exempting students from military training. The Army Signals Unit constructs the huts on Middle Head that will become the ASOPA campus. They use land cleared for a golf course
1942 – On 11 February civil government in PNG is suspended and the Cadet Patrol Officer training scheme managed by Sydney University ceases. Conlon appointed chairman of Prime Minister John Curtin's Committee on National Morale “which carried some vestige of the authority of the PM, whom Conlon knew”. Conlon, now a Major, appointed to head the Army’s Research Section. John Kerr joins as Assistant Director
1943 - Conlon transferred to the staff of the Army’s commander-in-chief, General Blamey, who reconstitutes Research Section as Directorate of Research. Blamey seeks Conlon’s advice in handling intricate political relationship between the high command and the Federal government. Conlon's propensity for informal contacts, deliberate avoidance of regular channels of communication and command, and neglect of proper procedures and records leads to his activities and the Directorate being regarded with suspicion and dislike by official bodies. “People of irreproachable good faith denounced him as a charlatan. Yet, he remained Blamey's confidant”
1944 - Conlon becomes Director of Research and Civil Affairs: “It had an uneasy relationship with the military”. Army announces Army announces it will establish the School of Civil Affairs under Conlon to train service personnel in colonial administration in PNG. Hon Camilla Wedgwood joins Directorate as an anthropologist: “On army bivouacs in PNG, where she served intermittently in 1944-45, when offered a cigarette by her young cadets her reply was: 'No thanks, I roll my own'”. She died of lung cancer in 1955
1945 - School of Civil Affairs established at Royal Military College Duntroon. Conlon persuades External Territories Minister Eddie Ward to ensure School continues after the war. On the first course staff outnumber students 47-40. Conlon has made many enemies and his influence wanes as war ends and the Directorate is disbanded. He’s promoted to Colonel just before going on the retired list. Kerr is appointed Chief Instructor at the School, which moves to Holsworthy. Meanwhile, the Army Signals Unit buildings on Middle Head that will become the ASOPA campus are used to house Italian internees who are employed as maintenance workers
1946 - Civil government is restored to PNG. Federal Cabinet approves the interim establishment of ASOPA. Colonel John Kerr is demobilised and becomes Principal
1947 – On 12 April Cabinet approves the permanent establishment of ASOPA. PNG Administrator JK Murray tells Eddie Ward (Minister for External Territories) that ASOPA should have a research function otherwise Australia will have nothing more than “mid Victorian colonial administration” in PNG. ASOPA moves to temporary premises in two Quonset huts at George’s Heights and then to Middle Head. Kerr says: “The idea of ASOPA was opposed, and opposed in influential quarters. Attempts were made to bring the whole academic venture to an end”. It is taken for granted that ASOPA’s destiny is to become part of ANU. In December, Eddie Ward visits ASOPA and says the government realises the need for thorough training of all administrative personnel in New Guinea. He says ASOPA is now on a firm footing. Kerr decides to resume practice at the NSW Bar and resigns as Principal. It is likely he smelt defeat over proposed ASOPA legislation that would see it cut off from academia: “[He] lost the will to fight the bureaucracy”
1948 – The first civilians enrol at ASOPA, training for patrol officer and magisterial duties. PNG Administrator Colonel JK Murray addresses the School: “Time is moving faster in New Guinea than the Europeans. Our aim and obligation in native administration is to work ourselves out of a job”. In PNG these liberal views are rewarded with the soubriquet ‘Kanaka Jack’. Conlon is appointed acting Principal for 12 months. “Even [his] staunchest supporters later agreed that this appointment was disastrous. The man who at his best was a creator of big ideas and a ‘hidden persuader’ in getting them acted upon was hopeless as an administrator” Conlon is interested in a permanent position as principal, which he hopes will give him continuing influence over PNG policy. He complains that “the colonial leathernecks who try to tell us that the School is no good at any rate ... do everything in their power to prevent us from getting the necessary authorities to take such reasonable steps as would make the School into something we would all want to see”
1949 – The Papua and New Guinea Act gives ASOPA statutory recognition. Teachers are being orientated at the School. Reg Halligan, Head of the Department of External Territories, reviews ASOPA and criticises its research aspirations, its ambitious educational goals, its cost and its pretensions. He concludes it is a self-serving institution. He writes of ASOPA staff: “Not understandable how so many experts in teaching Territorial Administration were produced in such a short time with no background”. Conlon loses interest and scarcely takes any part in the affairs of the School for the remainder of his term as acting principal, and thus ends any influence he may have exercised in New Guinea affairs. In September Conlon’s principalship ends: “an unsuccessful and unhappy principal of ASOPA”
1950 – Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, proposes to move ASOPA to Canberra. Nobody hears of this idea again. After Alf Conlon’s forced departure, Harry Maude OBE, long-serving Gilbert and Ellice Islands Administrator, is offered position as ASOPA Principal. He knocks it back and, in November, Charles Rowley gets the job
1951 - ASOPA's pretensions to be a research institution are officially knocked on the head and the School concentrates on training officers to serve in PNG
1952 – ASOPA’s occupation of part of 10 Terminal ends and the campus is relocated to the timber-framed huts of the previous Army Signals Unit camp
1953 - Hasluck gives the PNG Education Department the task of providing a universal primary education within a policy of ‘considered gradualism’
1954 - ASOPA begins to train Australian teachers to assist develop primary education in PNG. Ken McKinnon, later Director of Education, is one of them. Courses are offered to teachers recruited for Special (Aboriginal) Schools in the Northern Territory
1955 – The PNG Administration in Port Moresby rules that English is to be the language of instruction in PNG schools. On 17 May Camilla Wedgwood dies at Royal North Shore Hospital. James McAuley dedicates his poem ‘Winter Nightfall’ to her
1956 - ASOPA cadets begin to train at Bathurst Teachers College: “The provision of courses at Bathurst in 1956 was costly and a heavy drain on the limited academic staff of the School” says the ASOPA Annual Report
1957 - Dr Peter Lawrence begins lecturing in Anthropology at the School. His obituarist later writes: “His first and enduring passion was teaching at ASOPA”
1958 - Bathurst training is abandoned. Balmain Teachers’ College begins providing teacher education services for Cadet Education Officers training at ASOPA. The NSW Education Department agrees to award of the NSW Teacher’s Certificate to ASOPA graduates with three years successful inspection reports. Male ASOPA students are permitted to wear shorts with long socks
1959 - Cadet Education Officers move to Middle Head; 21 students enrolled
1960 - Hasluck’ s policy of universal primary education in PNG has led to 77,000 students enroling in recognised primary schools and another 112,000 in unregulated mission schools but a UN report on educational advancement suggests Australia is not doing enough to create educational opportunity. Australian press advertisements call for the E [Emergency] Course: a six month, condensed, practically-oriented program conducted in PNG for people qualified to teach only in PNG. 1,600 people apply and 60 are selected. Meanwhile there are 58 students in the CEO's course at ASOPA. Prime Minister Robert Menzies asks State Premiers to support education in PNG and obtains 20-30 seconded teachers a year from the State Education Departments. James McCauley leaves ASOPA to take a position at the University of Tasmania
1961 - Woollahra Colleagues Rugby Union Football Club, “the finest Burke Cup team ever to play for the club”, defeats ASOPA 36-5 in the grand final at Woollahra Oval. Les Peterkin arrives at ASOPA as physical education lecturer
1962 - UN Mission to PNG under chairmanship of Sir Hugh Foot focuses on educational development and urges Australia to disengage from its colonial role in the near future. The revised syllabus for Primary T Schools is published by the Department of Education in Port Moresby. Charles Rowley reflects on ASOPA’s educational philosophy: “Nearly all the students of the early fifties were ex-servicemen. Many had served in ANGAU, which controlled the destinies of New Guineans during the war; it had been concerned mainly with winning the war, and welfare was secondary. Thus in our courses we tried to provoke students to rethink conclusions which they had formed of the proper role of the Australians in New Guinea.” First issue of Vortex magazine is published
1963 - Dutch New Guinea becomes the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. Australian government perceives that Australia is vulnerable to Indonesian expansion in the Pacific. Second issue of Vortex hits the streets. ASOPA stages a revue, ‘The Natives Are Restless’, at Mosman Town Hall for a two-night season
1964 – Charles Rowley’s principalship ends. Jack Mattes takes over. Report of the Commission on Higher Education in PNG accelerates the establishment of the University of PNG. ASOPA asked to provide junior secondary training instead of primary. Revue ‘If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Eat ‘Em’ at Mosman Town Hall
1965 - Last PNG primary teachers graduate, although ASOPA continues to provide primary teacher training for NT schools
1966 - Largest ever CEO intake for PNG, 89 students in first year. Last long course for PNG Patrol Officers
1967 - PNG Director of Education Ken McKinnon unsuccessfully asks Canberra to reinstate E Course as PNG teacher training cannot keep pace with demand. One-year course commences for PNG senior local government officials
1968 – ASOPA hosts first of two three-month English courses for members of the PNG House of Assembly. ASOPA staff strike in support of NSW Teachers’ Federation, infuriating Balmain Teachers’ College Principal Greenhalgh, who can do nothing
1969 – A fire at ASOPA destroys many documents including all the policy papers up until 1949 and many student records
1970 - WJ (Jock) Weeden, a member of the ASOPA Council, makes recommendations about the future of the School. As a result of his report, the role of ASOPA changes so, instead of training Australian expatriates, it “takes on the new role of training Papua New Guineans as part of the overall program of accelerated training to prepare PNG for self government and independence”. First continuing course designed wholly for Papua New Guineans. Northern Territory primary teachers course extended to three years
1971 - As a result of the Weeden report, ASOPA's emphasis changes from training expatriates to training Papua New Guineans. Cadet Education Officers are to complete their programs but are the last teacher trainees at the School. First year Northern Territory trainees finish their course at Canberra College of Advanced Education. In December, the Mattes principalship ends and John Reynolds takes over
1972 - Teacher training ends and the last CEOs graduate. PNG administrators begin training at the School. Mattes estimates that 1,500 students have passed through ASOPA since 1947 with a maximum of 230 students at any one time. In teacher education, a total of 918 students enrolled, and 715 were certificated. Effectively, ASOPA's role has come to an end
1973 - PNG becomes self-governing. ASOPA is formally disestablished as a responsibility of the Minister for External Territories and statutory recognition under the Papua New Guinea Act in 1949 ceases. The International Training Institute comes into existence and is formally linked to the Australian Development Assistance Agency
1974 – The final group of Northern Territory field officers graduates
1975 - PNG becomes Independent
1983 - Jack Mattes completes compiling the laws of PNG
1987 - ITI closes and campus proclaimed as AIDAB Centre for Pacific Development and Training
1997 - Hallstrom Pacific Collection handed over to the University of New South
1998 - Centre for Pacific Development disestablished
2006 - A forum of the Australian Institute of International Affairs hears a suggestion that re-establishing ASOPA, possibly in Townsville, would better prepare Australians for work in PNG and the Pacific region
2007 – A paper of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says: “An earlier and largely forgotten Australian model in this regard was the Australian School of Pacific Administration... While the ASOPA model is not appropriate to current situations for obvious reasons, it was an innovative and successful response in its time and there is much that we can learn from it. The problems in the so-called arc of instability surrounding our shores are not going to disappear anytime soon. Arguably they will get worse in the immediate future. While as a country we might not be able to claim unique expertise or knowledge in respect of every place where international assistance is required, we surely ought to be able to make this claim in respect of countries with which we are so inextricably bound by reasons of history, geography, sentiment and national interest”
If you know of other significant ASOPA events not listed in the chronology, please forward them (with a citation if possible) to me here.