Australia views Southeast Asia as a major prospect for business. As part of its initial regional strategy, Australia has made bolstering its educational relations with Southeast Asian countries a top priority.
At the ASEAN Indo-Pacific Forum in Indonesia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed the new plan outlining how Australia will strengthen ties with its northern neighbors amid strong economic growth in Southeast Asia. The policy seeks to improve Australia’s economic involvement with ASEAN by addressing underinvestment and stagnating foreign investment.
In order to improve qualification recognition, the strategy suggests boosting cooperation between schools and universities and investing more in promoting Australia’s education system to students in the area.
In the last 20 years, more than 500,000 students from Southeast Asia have pursued higher education in Australia. An expanding middle class and an extensive youth population are expected to fuel a boom in demand for education services from Southeast Asia until 2040. As a result, Australian institutions must adapt to changing industry demands and student preferences to meet this need.
The government intends to organize a national alumni engagement project and provide chances for Southeast Asian students to participate in work-integrated learning at universities and vocational schools. The CEO of the Vietnamese talent platform Cturtle, Shane Dillon, expressed his satisfaction with the alumni networks’ inclusion, noting that ASEAN grads with Australian credentials make up a “sizeable group… wanting to be engaged.”
Ly Tran, professor at Deakin University’s School of Education emphasized the fact that relying solely on mobility or student exchange is not enough. To promote a comprehensive strategy for internationalizing the student experiences while developing sustainable capability for Australian-ASEAN relations, better coordination amongst stakeholders and the establishment of a whole-institution approach are imperative.
It is also crucial to make use of the experiences, networks, languages, and expertise from Southeast Asia that international students from ASEAN contribute to Australian communities and institutions since this enormous potential resource has not yet been fully utilized. The government’s plan to improve the study abroad experience for incoming Asian students should be centered on Australia’s dedication to Asian language study and cultural competency.
