Australian School of Pacific Administration

At this time non-academic functions of Sydney University's Department of Anthropology - including providing training for cadet officers joining the New Guinea service and also more senior officials - were transferred to ASOPA.

Immediately after the war, enrolments to study at ASOPA were restricted to servicemen and, when civilian candidates were admitted not long after, preference was given to those with working experience and good academic records.

After initially acquiring field experience in TPNG, Patrol Officers spent a year at ASOPA studying subjects such as law, map reading, history, government, Tok Pisin and anthropology.

In addition to training patrol and education officers, the School ran shorter orientation and refresher programs for Australian professional personnel preparing to serve in TPNG and elsewhere in the South Pacific.

By the mid-1960s, the Australian Government realised that Papua New Guinea would become independent sooner than previously anticipated and, under the Principalship of political scientist and author Charles Rowley, later Foundation Professor of Politics at the University of Papua New Guinea, ASOPA moved into an intensive period of training young Australians to accelerate the pace of development.

In 1970 there was a major change of focus as, with Papua New Guinea independence looming, the Australian Government turned to ASOPA to make good a serious shortage of trained indigenous administrators.

In 1973, the year in which Australia granted self-government to Papua New Guinea, ASOPA was redesignated and restructured as the International Training Institute (ITI) within the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In this we succeeded.” Today, the old Army huts on Middle Head are empty, but they have been heritage listed by the Commonwealth Government and now await refurbishment and regeneration into another role.