Youth agency in public diplomacy: Australian youth participation in outbound mobility and connection building between Australia and the Indo-Pacific region

‘It’s a few weeks I’ll cherish forever’: Transformative curriculum-specific learning, language awareness and cultural literacy development for Australian students in Vietnam through New Colombo Plan mobility programs

“…In Australia, the New Colombo Plan (NCP) introduced in 2014 embraced the government’s goal to draw on outbound student mobility to the Indo-Pacific to strengthen Australia’s regional engagement and enhance people-to-people linkages. This regional mobility program views Australian students as key actors in implementing public (soft) diplomacy goals (Tran et al, 2022; Tran and Bui, 2021; Tran and Marginson, 2018) while undertaking study and internships in the region. The NCP has shifted Australia's outbound mobility trend from a concentration on traditional Anglophone destinations to Indo-Pacific countries.…”

COVID-19, geopolitics and risk management: Towards framing a reciprocal, coordinated, responsive and empathetic international education sector

“…The relationship between international education and geopolitics is often discussed in relation to how nations draw on international education to foster mutual understandings and at the same time, exert soft power influence ( Altbach and de Wit, 2017 ; Tran et al, 2022 ; Tran and Bui, 2021 ; Tran and Vu, 2018 ). Driven by the ‘education as aid’ principle, Australia sought to both support national building of developing countries in Asia and increase its positioning in the region through the introduction of the Colombo Plan in the 1950s, providing scholarships for scholars in the region to study in Australia ( Tran et al, 2021a , 2021b ; Tran and Nguyen, 2023 ). International education has been used as mechanism to advance international cooperation in higher education and build mutual understandings between nations by international education bodies such as the Institute of International Education in the US, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in Germany and the British Council in the UK ( De Wit et al, 2015 ).…”

Evaluation of a virtual, simulated international public health peer-to-peer exchange learning experience

“…Practise-based learning (PBL) using a case study approach allows students to translate classroom theory to real-world issues, promoting competency development (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). While different models of PBL demonstrate success, mentor-based PBL sessions have increasingly been adopted by PH universities with higher student success outcomes.…”

“…Moreover, greater cultural immersion has conventionally been linked to study abroad programs that have also been the primary mode for international health system exposure ( 11 , 12 ). An evaluation by Tran et al ( 13 ) in Australia, for example, the Australian Government’s flagship university student (undergraduate only) travel and study abroad (in semester) grant, the New Colombo Plan (NCP), showed an increasing number of students reporting greater cultural appreciation of regional host countries post-program participation, along with an increase in students choosing to work in jobs “based in the (Indo-pacific) region” ( 13 ). While such study abroad programs advance student global student mobility, most operate from Government funded programs based in high-income Global North countries like Australia.…”