He graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in 1964, having focussed on Asian Studies and writing his thesis on the Indian Educationist and Nobel Literature Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. He published his first book “Indonesian for Schools” coauthored with Hedwig Emanuels in 1967 (Science Press) which he completed alone after Emanuels’ death midway through the writing. “Part Two” of this series was Vernon’s own work and was published in 1968. Vernon was the first teacher of Indonesian language in schools in NSW. This was followed by awards of a Master of Education from the University of Sydney in 1973 with a thesis entitled “Ki Hadjar Dewantara and the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia,” and a Master of Arts (Honours) from the University of New England in 1980 with a thesis entitled “A History of Indonesian-Chinese Relations in Indonesia since Independence: the Problems of Assimilation and Integration.”. He published a further two textbooks on Indonesian language, “Bahasa Indonesia – Buku 1” and “Bahasa Indonesia – Buku 2”, the first editions in 1986 (Hasanuddin University Press) and the second editions in 1989 (Damai Publications).