Who is Geoff Spring?
In 1978, Geoff Spring arrived in Darwin from Melbourne to take up the position of the Secretary of the Department of Education in the Northern Territory Government. In this role he visited every community school in the NT.
He became involved in efforts to establish a university in the NT when Tom Harris, then Minister for Education, was pushing hard to make this happen in the mid 1980s.
Geoff Spring, like many others, was particularly concerned at that time about the need to stem the "brain drain" from the NT. Without a "proper university" young people and their families were leaving the Territory to continue their education elsewhere.
Geoff was involved in the battle between the NT and Federal Governments over whether or not there should be a university in the NT. He has been described as an "unsung hero" for his part in establishing a university in the NT.
Read the Geoff Spring video transcript (pdf 79KB).
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