The corps grew out of the Australian Army Education Service (AAES), which was established on 29 October 1943 during World War II, under the command of Colonel Robert Madgwick. Through the AAES, the corps draws its lineage from the Australian Army Education Scheme, which was established under Madgwick on 5 March 1941. That scheme itself was based loosely upon a vocational education scheme that had been established during World War I within the Australian Imperial Force in 1918 under George Merrick Long, as part of the demobilisation and repatriation process.