Parents from the Campbell Primary School Parents and Citizens Association mobilise support from P&Cs across Canberra to improve education and the administration of schools in the ACT.

The Campbell P&C advocacy leads to the setting up of a high-powered Working Party chaired by Sir George Currie and including academics, principals, teachers to detail an alternative approach to providing public education in the ACT.

The ‘Currie Report’ - An Independent Education Authority for the Australian Capital Territory argues for an independent authority to run ACT public schools and provided a blueprint for an education authority independent from NSW, a participatory administration, decentralised school system, and a school curriculum more appropriate to the unique needs of Canberra.

The Currie Report is used as a platform for this group and other interested parties to lobby federal ministers, and departments to establish a new public schooling system for the ACT.

The federal Department of Education and Science forms a working party headed by ANU Professor Richard Campbell to examine the Department's proposals for colleges for senior secondary students.

The Commonwealth Teaching Service is set up as a career structure for teachers in Commonwealth schools.

Malcolm Fraser as Minister for Education and Science announces the Commonwealth will staff ACT schools and move towards a separate education authority.

New Commonwealth Minister for Education Kim Beazley appoints an expert inquiry under chair Phillip Hughes into an education authority for the ACT.

Three significant reports that will shape the future of education in the ACT are handed to the federal government:

• The ‘Campbell Report’ - Secondary Education for Canberra recommends high schools for Years 7-10 and the establishment of secondary colleges for Years 11-12 and proposed greater participation of teachers and parents in school policymaking.
• The ‘Hughes Report’ - A Design for the Governance and Organisation of Education in the Australian Capital Territory recommends a decentralised school system with powers devolved to school councils and parents and teachers involved in decision making processes at school and system level. It also proposes a Council be appointed to sit over a new Schools Authority that will develop policy and assume total responsibility for the ACT public school system from the start of 1974.
• The ‘Karmel Report’ - Schools in Australia recommends the devolution of responsibility from administrations to schools and supported equality, diversity and community involvement.

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announces Federal Cabinet has decided on the form and operations of a statutory body to administer ACT government schools from the beginning of 1974 to be known as the ACT Schools Authority.

Members of the Council of the Interim Schools Authority are named: Chair – Professor Phillip Hughes; Catherine Blakers; P&C reps Dr Alan Barnard and Kath Abbott; Teachers Federation res were Max Badham, Mick March and Margaret Dempster; Ken Fry from the ACT Advisory Council; and Ailsa Curtis from the Pre-School Association.

The appointment of the Interim ACT Schools Authority Council members on 8 October 1973 led to the creation of a new public school system in the ACT, independent of the NSW Education Department, and radically different in structure, governance, and curriculum to any other school system in Australia.

The Council of the Interim School’s Authority holds its first meeting. A small eight-person unit takes control of the running of the ACT schools.

The permanent Commonwealth Schools Commission is established to distribute Commonwealth funds to schools, including the Innovations Program which dispensed funds directly to ACT schools.