There Once was a Teaching Institute in Prestigious, High-End Mosman which Trained Pacific Islanders as Future Administrators and Teachers

  449 words 

ಊಊಉಊಊಊ

With the much-talked-about 50th anniversary this week of “the Dismissal”, aka the Governor-General’s “extra-constitutional coup” on November 11 1975, it’s timely to touch on an earlier chapter in the career of Sir John Kerr—decades before his term as the queen’s representative in Australia—his time as foundation head of the Australian School of Pacific Administration.

What became known by the unwieldy acronym ASOPA, had its genesis in the Australian Army’s School of Civil Affairs in 1945. In 1946 it got rebranded as the Australian School of Pacific Administration, with a purely civil purpose. Located on Sydney’s lower North Shore at affluent and leafy harbour-side Mosman§, the institution’s raison d’etre was to train administrators and school teachers from the Papua New Guinean population to fill these professional role in a developing PNG. The trainers were seconded from the NSW Department of Education.

Spartan accommodation of ASOPA

John Kerr is known today to all Australians as the man who became Australia’s most controversial-ever G-G, but 70 years ago he was at the time an officer in the Australian Army. At the end of WWII Kerr was demoted with the rank of colonel and became ASOPA’s first principal in early 1947. Interestingly, it was while at the school that Kerr met the woman who was to become his second wife, Lady Anne Kerr, then Anne Robson. The future Mrs Kerr, known for her “élitiste” inclinations£, was for a period a teacher and researcher at the Mosman-based school.

John Kerr as head of ASOPA tried to forge an association with the proposed new university in Canberra which became ANU in 1949, but was unsuccessful. Not long after Kerr resigned from ASOPA in 1948 and returned to the law, later becoming a member of the judiciary…the rest of his story is well known. Kerr was succeeded as head of ASOPA by another ex-army officer, Colonel Alfred Conlon.

 Into the Fifties and beyond ASOPA continued its role helping PNG to prepare the country and it’s people for independence which occurred in 1975. The scope of the school’s training  was broadened to take in students from other developing Pacific countries as well. In 1973 ASOPA was transformed into the International Training Institute (ITI) (ITI), which continued to provide management training until it closed in late 1997.  

Sources: 

The ASOPA Controversy: A Pivot of Australian Policy for Papua and New Guinea, Journal of Pacific History, 1945-49 pp. 83-99(17), by I.C. Campbell 

‘Sir John Kerr: A legacy complicated by controversy’, Harbour Trust, 22-January-2025, www.harbourtrust.gov.au

§ originally situated within the Commonwealth military facility at Georges Heights, it later moved to nearby Middle Head

£ a perfect match to be sure!