[Indonesia] University program kept Indonesia links alive
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s championing of the New Colombo Plan (NCP), which will help nearly 5500 students to study or do internships in Asia next year, prompts the question: what is the benefit for Australia? The track record of the longest-running Australian organization sending students to Indonesian universities provides an emphatic answer.
The Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) is a consortium of 24 universities, which sent its first cohort of students to Indonesia in August 1995. Since then nearly 2000 have studied in Indonesian universities.
The 448 students from ACICIS’ member universities will share in the $2.1 million ACICIS received in the 2016 round of the NCP mobility grants. A further 97 internships were included. This appears to be the largest single NCP grant, highlighting the importance the government places on educational links with Indonesia.
Source: Australian Financial Review
