Sydney College of Advanced Education (SCAE)

Commonwealth government announcement of recommendations for a consolidation of higher education provision in March 1981. Welcomed by state governments; argued against by individual institutions, but the threatened loss of commonwealth funding dissipated much of this opposition. On 24 July 1981 Sydney College of Advanced Education (CAE) established as a corporation under the Colleges of Advanced Education Act 1975 by the State Minister of Education.

The Sydney CAE commenced operation on 1 January 1982. The participating colleges included: Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education; Guild Teachers College; Nursery School Teachers College; Sydney Kindergarten Teachers College; and, Sydney Teachers College. Institutes formed included: The Institute of Early Childhood Studies (Sydney Kindergarten Teachers College and Nursery School Teachers College); The Institute of Technical and Adult Education (formerly Sydney Teachers College Technical Education School); The City Art Institute (formerly the School of Art in the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education); The St George Institute of Education (Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education); The Sydney Institute of Education (Sydney Teachers College); The Guild Centre (Guild Teachers College), designed for non-government education; not designated an Institute.

Late 1984 the Institute of Nursing Studies became the 6th Institute of the Sydney CAE.

Mansfield Committee Report to the Higher Education Board (1985) following its review of the NSW Advanced Education sectors provision for education in visual arts and design, responses to its recommendations eventually led to the CAIs withdrawal from the Sydney CAE. In March 1987, it was announced that, from the start of 1988, the City Art Institute would join the East Sydney Art School and, with those parts of the Sydney College of the Arts not joining the University of Technology, Sydney, would become the NSW Institute of the Arts.

November 1988 Council meeting decided to pursue disestablishment through a divestment model. Formal Closing Ceremony was held at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre on 3 November 1989. On 31 December 1989, Sydney CAE ceased to exist as a corporate body.

The NSW Higher Education (Amalgamation) Act 1989 set out how the future of the former CAEs. For Sydney CAE the Constituent Institutes transferred to the four Sydney metropolitan universities. The individual institutes were amalgamated as follows:

Sydney Institute of Education (University of Sydney)
Institute of Nursing Studies ( University of Sydney)
Institute of Early Childhood Studies (Macquarie University)
St George Institute of Education (University of New South Wales)
Institute of Technical and Adult Teacher Education (University of Technology, Sydney)

The records of each institute, and their predecessors, were transferred to the relevant successor University.  The Yarrawood Conference Centre, and the records relating to it, were transferred to the University of Technology, Sydney.