Page 715 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
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mission particularly aimed to promote Canberra as a higher education and healthcare leader at a time when Indonesia is actively seeking international partnerships to help meet its workforce and service needs.
Indonesia is amongst the top 10 priority countries in the ACT government’s international engagement strategy and it is a priority market in the ACT’s broader economic development strategy. With a population of 260 million, it is on track to become one of the world’s top five economies by 2030. The signing of the Indonesia-Australia comprehensive economic partnership agreement marks a new stage in the relationship between our two countries.
The new agreement improves market access in a number of areas of comparative advantage for the ACT, particularly in higher and vocational education and healthcare services. With this in mind, our mission was focused on connecting the ACT’s institutions with their Indonesian counterparts and exploring real opportunities for partnership. In that light, it was fantastic to have representatives from the ANU, UC and UNSW participating in this mission, alongside the territory government’s representatives.
Their participation helped us to put forward a clear and positive picture of the ACT’s education ecosystem and its benefits for students, researchers and institutional partners. During the mission we made direct representations to relevant Indonesian government agencies about the ACT’s education offerings and the benefits of closer collaboration. This included meetings with the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Technology and senior executives of the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, which is the administering body for national government university scholarships.
I also delivered a public lecture at the University of Indonesia, the country’s top-rated tertiary institution, to emphasise the important role that collaboration between our education sectors can play in tackling shared challenges like climate change, health and wellbeing, and skilling our respective workforces for the jobs of the future.
Indonesia has seen a surge in demand for tertiary and vocational education. In the last 10 years, the share of Indonesians enrolled in tertiary education has almost doubled. That is why we took the opportunity with these meetings to showcase the capabilities that exist within the ACT’s education ecosystem, both for overseas study and in-country or online delivery of training.
The ACT is a leader in the delivery and design of high-quality tertiary education programs, and we believe there is a strong opportunity to partner with Indonesian institutions in developing new and improved courses, upskilling lecturers and vocational trainers, and improving the quality of online educational offerings. This may be in addition to the traditional route of attracting students to study in Canberra, recognising that the potential for education service exports goes far beyond simply hosting students from overseas. During the delegation, I was also pleased to meet with the Governor of Jakarta.
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