Beyond the ‘normal’ to the ‘new possibles’: Australian students’ experiences in Asia and their roles in making connections with the region via the New Colombo Plan

Abstract

Introduced in 2014, the New Colombo Plan (NCP) represents the Australian government's signature initiative of student mobility and public diplomacy. The programme aims to expose Australian undergraduate students to the Indo‐Pacific. This article focuses on analysing Australian students’ experiences in Asia via the NCP. The article draws on a research project that includes policy discourse analysis and 52 interviews with government representatives, academics, mobility officers and Australian students learning abroad via the NCP. The research found that if well designed, NCP student mobility programmes have the potential to enable students to move beyond their initial instrumental goal of using learning abroad predominantly as a means to pursue their personal interest in travel and/or enhance their own employability towards engagement for the collective. The article proposes the notions of mobility as becoming and mobility as connecting as the conceptual frame to understand Australian students’ experiences and engagement with Asia in the current context characterised by the government's strategy to use student mobility as a vehicle of public diplomacy. It highlights the need to focus more on developing students’ in‐country participatory capitals and build a coherent mechanism to sustain NCP alumni's post‐return engagement with individuals and communities in the region and promote the region back in Australia. The article concludes with suggestions for related stakeholders to facilitate students’ roles in making meaningful, productive and sustainable connections between Australia and Asia.

Public Diplomacy and Social Impact of Australian Student Mobility to the Indo-Pacific: Host Countries’ Perspectives on Hosting New Colombo Plan Students

“…Examples of these learning abroad programs that are driven by strategic government agendas include the Erasmus Mundus project in Europe, the Fulbright program in the United States, and the NCP in Australia. Learning abroad programs are reported to enable students to enhance intercultural understandings and adaptability (Chwialkowska, 2020;Dall'Alba & Sidhu, 2015;Tran et al, 2021), develop international and inter-personal skills (Dall'Alba & Sidhu, 2015;Tran & Vu, 2018), and acquire global competencies (Whatley et al, 2021). These developments are believed to subsequently increase students' employability skills and employment prospects (Tran et al, 2019).…”

“…The social engagement dimension of learning abroad programs through the NCP can be regarded as moral orders that shape the positions taken by different parties involved in the program. For example, under the NCP, outbound students are positioned as actors or future actors who exercise the public diplomatic role by engaging in people-to-people connections that contribute to building long-term relationships between home and host countries (Tran & Vu, 2018). In this way, positioning theory is used as a theoretical lens to understand the social responsibility of international education within the NCP context.…”

“…This study reveals that at the macro level, not only does the Australian government explicitly position the NCP as a strategic tool to build lasting relationships with countries in the Indo-Pacific region, but receiving countries also view the NCP as a catalyst that facilitates the execution of their international agenda. This enduring country-to-country connection is facilitated by the accumulation of international insights, experiences, and friendships at the individual and institutional levels (Tran et al, 2021;Tran & Vu, 2018) that foster potential mutual understandings, and collaborations across individual and collective levels.…”

“…Funding international education activities can influence the directions, motivations, and main professional or ethical aspects of the internationalization process, and the way the fund is executed at the national level can define what internationalization is in certain contexts (Matei et al, 2015). While the public diplomacy function of the NCP has been reported mostly from home perspectives (e.g., Byrne, 2016;Tran & Vu, 2018), this study shows the impact of this public diplomacy policy on shaping host communities' positions and perspectives that contribute to fostering connections between sending and receiving countries.…”

Effect of Learning Abroad on the Students’ Career Direction and Employability through Australian-Indonesian Student Mobility Programs

“…There is no doubt that student mobility has been acknowledged as an important way to support national goals to develop human capital and strengthen diplomatic, economic and cultural connection with other countries across the world (Tran & Vu, 2018), as well as almost all stakeholders agree with the assumption that learning abroad or participating in international student mobility program¾degree or non-degree program¾will have a positive effect on students. However, questions increasingly arise on how international education and experience can fulfil the students' objectives and expectations to be fit in professional world and their career direction in the context of unpredictably labour market and policy changes at the greater national and international level (Blackmore et al, 2017).…”