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The title question deserves a cynic’s answer: Only when our neighbors become military dictatorships and join forces with China might we wake up.
Indonesia is 70 times the size of Bali, the island where most Australians experience the beaches and Bintan, and you’d probably imagine the other 37 provinces are similar, but that’s not the case.
If what political scientists call an “arc of instability” once stretched across the region, Indonesia is no longer there.
As the world’s fourth largest country, with an astounding growth rate of 5.3%, it has become an aid donor and is hurtling towards superpower status. It won’t be long before struggling Pacific island nations cry for aid and join China in getting all the attention they need.
Here’s the proof we’re not serious: 10 years ago the then coalition government touted the “New Colombo Plan”, whatever that meant as a “signature initiative”.
The idea was to “enhance knowledge of the Indo-Pacific by supporting Australian undergraduate students in their studies, language training and internships in the region.” Everyone applauded.
The name has a history. The show was founded in 1951 at a multi-state conference in the Sri Lankan capital to help “developing countries.” We offered scholarships to people from Southeast Asia to study in Australia. More applause.
Some of Indonesia’s future leaders got to know Australia and forged lasting friendships. That generation is now almost gone, and the Communist Party is now working on reducing drug use, gender issues and climate change.
The NCP has reversed its original intention, and that seems fine until the data is analysed. Students can go to any of 40 countries under the scheme. Over the last 30 years, 12,000 Australians have visited Indonesia, mostly for short courses.
But when all else fails, how do you find a university, a visa, and assistance? Students can do it on their own, but ACICIS makes it easy. Australian National Research Consortium. It was the idea of now-retired Professor David Hill of Murdoch University in Perth.
This year, the station celebrates its 30th anniversaryNumber I’m celebrating my birthday and sharing some accomplishments.
More than 4,000 graduates are working in key sectors in government agencies both at home and abroad. Australia in the Asian Century The white paper described the consortium as a “successful model for domestic learning.”
Last year, Hill received the Indonesia Award for “Promotion of Cooperation and the Indonesian Language.”
Despite the persistence of Hill and others, Canberra prefers to focus on the Pacific, particularly the islands where Beijing is exploring its niche for a base.
We pride ourselves on being monolingual, which is awful. The Jakarta Post Tell your readers what kind of neighbors are bothering them “Australian students enrolled in Indonesian language programs has hit an all-time low… a trend that could have a negative impact on the overall bilateral relationship,” the report said.
Ten Indonesian universities are part of ACICIS, and students who want to understand more about their local peers (something all governments encourage but rarely achieve) can take 25 courses, ranging from law to agriculture to basic language and culture.
Every student backpacker is a de facto diplomat, demonstrating through their engagement and enthusiasm that Australians are not all Kuta thugs or minions of the American deputy marshals that John Howard once supposedly positioned his country.
But here’s the thing: the ACICIS report says that last year the organisation “supported 436 Australian and international students to study in Indonesia”.
Sounds great, right? However, according to Indonesian government statistics, the republic has over 4,000 “institutions of higher education,” of which only 184 are public, serving 3.38 million students.
Many private universities are small and run by religious organizations or corporations, have varying quality and limited offerings, and enroll approximately 4.5 million students.
Top campuses are public University of Indonesia. Internationally, it ranks low at 206th, and some rating sites rank it even lower.
China is the preferred destination for overseas study applicants, with Indonesia coming in seventh in the selection criteria, just ahead of South Korea, but second only to Japan in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Lowy Institute report argues that “Indonesia’s education system is one of mass production but low quality, falling far short of the ‘internationally competitive’ system it aspires to be.”
This was written in 2018. There has been some movement in the past six years, but few signs of major reform. Jakarta too needs to step up if it wants to attract foreigners to its universities.
With 11 Indonesian nationals for every Australian, we need at least 4,500 students exploring the archipelago every year, on long rather than short stays, and even then we’ll only ever know a tiny fraction of it.
However, the numbers submitted through ACICIS are roughly the same as in 2018.
Such tinkering with numbers is a clumsy exercise that doesn’t take into account dropouts, course changes, policy shifts, definitions and other factors like COVID-19, but it’s a sore reminder of just how little we care about our neighbours.
Students spending a semester in Indonesia next year are expected to pay up to $16,000 for tuition fees, transportation, insurance and living expenses, which can be offset with support from the NCP.
Adaptable frugal people can get by with less (and learn more) by living like a local.
ACICIS receives 2.53% of NCP mobility funding (mainly for short courses) and awards scholarships to long-term students. There are 120 NCP competitive scholarships available for outstanding students nominated by campuses.
That’s true for 1 in 40 countries.
“A major obstacle is the lack of a clear curriculum for Australian universities to study a semester in the Indo-Pacific region,” ACICIS director Liam Prince said.
“Australia, through its size, proximity and geopolitical importance, must develop constructive and mutually beneficial relationships.
“The Australian side strives to see the world from Indonesia’s perspective, which is one of the necessary conditions for realising the potential of our bilateral relationship.”
“We find security in Asia, we find security in serving the Asian community, we find security in building alliances. This is absolutely essential,” former Prime Minister Paul Keating said.
This is an idea that voters have yet to embrace, or the federal government would need to get serious about encouraging universities to prioritize Asian skills.
Not everyone wants to get a PhD in Ancient Javanese, but curious and talented people will want to experience New Indonesia at all levels. They need encouragement, for the sake of all of us, now and in the future.
For more information on this topic, please see our P&I Recommendations.
John Menadue. Will the New Colombo Plan Work?
