A memento of ASOPA’s final golden year

In 1972, Phil Trenorden, then president of the ASOPA students’ representative council, wrote in an editorial in the magazine, ’25 Years of ASOPA’, that the last Cadet Education Officers were about to graduate from the School. As he noted, it was the end of an unusual era of teacher training for Papua New Guinea and the Northern Territory.

ASOPA PEOPLE today reproduces the substantive part of that magazine [see download link below]. It contains a wealth of material: Vic Parkinson writes about ASOPA in war and peace; Jack Mattes, then celebrating 20 years at ASOPA and ending his tenure as principal, provides a personal retrospective; Margaret Westwood offers a tribute to Charles Rowley; and there is a savage indictment by Ralph Watson of the Australian government policy that ended teacher training at ASOPA. And, for that matter, ended ASOPA.

’25 Years of ASOPA’ is one of the many papers now assembled in The ASOPA Archives section of ASOPA PEOPLE EXTRA at left.

Comments

[Martin Hadlow]

Well done on publishing the old ASOPA magazine, Keith. Ralph Watson, in his article "The ASOPAN Tragedy", highlights the short-sightedness of closing such a training institution when the region is "drastically short of teachers, English as a Second Language specialists..." etc. Prescient stuff from 1972. What is the case today? Huge shortage of qualified teachers in many parts of Asia and the Pacific. And the teaching of English as a Second Language? It's now one of Australia's major educational export industries. What goes around comes around...

[Phil Charley]

Keith, you're to be congratulated on preserving the history of this great institution and providing such a great service for its ex-students. Although I didn't attend ASOPA, Marie and I met many of its products during our nine years in PNG. These people were essential to the country's development. ASOPA must be remembered --- and you're doing just that.