Australia’s international education story has always been shaped as much by people as by policy. For decades, academics, administrators, and adventurous students have built the country’s regional footprint through improvisation, persistence, and a willingness to try things that didn’t yet have a name. A recently published book captures this human side of the sector with unusual warmth and candour. Written by a collective of long‑time practitioners and Indonesia specialists, it traces the evolution of Australia’s education engagement with Indonesia through the programs, partnerships, and personalities that made it possible.
The manuscript moves across eras, from the Colombo Plan to the rise of mobility schemes, from the bureaucratic battles of the 1980s to the entrepreneurial energy of the 2000s. It is reflective without being nostalgic, and honest about the missteps that shaped the sector just as much as the successes. Among its chapters, one stood out for The Koala for its vivid storytelling and historical significance: David Hill’s account of how ACICIS, the Australian Consortium for In‑Country Indonesian Studies, came into being.
Hill’s chapter reads almost like a travelogue crossed with an origin myth. In the early 1990s, Indonesian studies in Australia faced a familiar problem. Enrolments were fragile, departments were under pressure, and the distance between classroom learning and lived Indonesian experience felt wider than ever. Hill, then a young academic with deepening ties to Indonesian universities, saw the gap clearly. If students were going to understand Indonesia in any meaningful way, they needed to be in Indonesia, not reading about it from a campus thousands of kilometres away.
He describes the moment the idea crystallised during a conversation in Yogyakarta, the air thick with clove smoke and the hum of motorbikes drifting through open windows. Australian students, he realised, were missing the intellectual electricity of Indonesian campuses. In one of the chapter’s most memorable lines, Hill writes that if students could sit in those classrooms, hear those debates, and feel that energy, they would understand Indonesia in a way no textbook could offer. That conviction became the seed of ACICIS.
The chapter then shifts into a story of persistence and persuasion. Hill recounts the long chain of meetings with Indonesian rectors, each one requiring a different blend of diplomacy, patience, and charm. He describes the challenge of convincing Australian universities that sending students to Indonesia was not only academically sound but strategically essential. Safety concerns, credit transfer issues, and doubts about student interest all surfaced. Yet Hill kept pushing, driven by a belief that immersion was the only path to genuine cultural literacy.
The turning points in the story feel almost cinematic. The first Australian university agreeing to join the consortium. The breakthrough partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada. The moment the inaugural cohort of Australian students arrived in Yogyakarta in 1994, stepping onto campus with a mix of nerves and exhilaration. Hill writes about watching them walk across the grounds and realising that ACICIS had crossed from idea to reality. It is a quiet moment in the chapter, but one that carries enormous emotional weight.
In the broader context of the book, Hill’s chapter serves as a reminder that Australia’s engagement with Indonesia has often depended on individuals willing to push past institutional inertia. ACICIS did not emerge from a government directive or a strategic plan. It came from a belief that deep understanding requires immersion, discomfort, and curiosity. The book positions ACICIS as a model for what mobility programs can achieve. Graduates return with language skills, networks, and a more nuanced understanding of Australia’s largest neighbour. Hill’s reflections also highlight how fragile such initiatives can be. ACICIS survived political upheavals, funding droughts, and shifting university priorities because its founders and later its alumni refused to let it fade.
Beyond Hill’s contribution, the manuscript offers a panoramic view of Australia’s education diplomacy. It explores the evolution of scholarships, the rise of transnational campuses, and the policy debates that shaped the sector’s growth. It celebrates the creativity and courage of academics who built partnerships long before Indonesia literacy became a national talking point. It also acknowledges the failures, the false starts, and the moments when ambition outpaced resources.
The book feels like a missing piece in Australia’s education narrative. It captures the improvisation, the friendships, and the late‑night phone calls across time zones that shaped our sector. And in Hill’s chapter, it offers a masterclass in how one determined academic helped reshape Australia’s relationship with Indonesia. When this book eventually reaches readers, it will become essential reading for anyone interested in how Australia built its educational footprint in the region.
To download a copy of the book, see here.
To attend the launch celebration of its publishing:
Date: Wednesday, 12 August 2026
Time: 5:30pm networking and refreshments for 6:00pm start
Venue: Level 24, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney
Places are limited and registration is essential: https://events.humanitix.com/book-launch-or-experiencing-indonesia-30-years-of-acicis
Picture: David Hill and Laura Wimsett from the ACICIS Secretariat, Canberra, 1999. Thank you to ACICIS for providing.
