The international education sector’s headache from ill-fitting visa caps now has a unique Learning Abroad twist: an uplifting initiative tossing mortarboards into the air… a no-caps option!
Among a raft of changes to the 2025 NCP Scholars program announced yesterday at the Centre for Asian-Australia Leadership, Senator The Hon Penny Wong said “we will remove the cap and aim to double the number of long-term scholarships available to universities”.
This will take the NCP Scholar cohort to around 300 students. With NCP a complex machine of moving parts, this alone uplifts the collective time, impact and in country representation by young Australians in the Indo-Pacific.
Opening nominations and diversity
To ‘encourage a wider pool of applicants’ there is now no limit on the number of students universities may nominate. The 2024 cap of 15 nominations is mothballed and boxed for storage. Institutions now need simply attest to the candidates ‘resilience and initiative sufficient to thrive overseas whilst completing their proposed scholarship program’.
On the surface, a logical, welcomed and progressive change that both puts more student ambassadors into the region for longer and uncovers a larger talent pool amongst young Australians interested in engagement with Asia. The investment underpins the diversity of Australia’s broad foreign policy architecture. Most recently on display through a raft of Free Trade Agreements and relationship upgrades, the 2023 published Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 and the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit hosted in Melbourne in March 2024, these initiatives will be elevated as NCP builds a future workforce with a higher degree of Asia literacy and experience.
Deakin University Professor Ly Tran, ARC Future Fellow in International Education, says “Indo-Pacific partners and communities see hosting Australian students as a tool to build their relationships with Australia”. Her research demonstrating these bi- and multi-lateral relationships enable the execution of shared regional agendas that enrich internationalisation of teaching and learning, boost domestic and international higher education recruitment and support regional research and industry engagement.
Simon Watson (UTS), IEAA Learning Abroad Network Convener, notes “the [NCP Scholars] program until now has operated in a ‘goldilocks’ zone, getting things ‘just right’ in enabling complexity, access and diversity while growing awareness among students and academics of all the region has to offer.” With a community exceeding 50,000 NCP Alumni, universities can now grow this, expanding the Scholars program profile by opening their nomination process to a broader student demographic.
Awareness and growth are also served by a corresponding diversity initiative. Removal of the minimum graded average eligibility requirement (4.1, 4.2) recognises that student excellence can be displayed and measured beyond a semester weighted average. The opportunity for young Australians to showcase the diversity of their expertise on the global stage is now open and wider than ever before. While the assessment by universities will require a reweighted to reflect the potential and capability of students to successfully complete a program of overseas study, the opportunity to bring new potential candidates into the mix for nomination has just exploded exponentially. It’s a whole new world.
Language acquisition
Coupled with removing the cap on nominations, language acquisition features as a step change shift in the 2025 Scholarship guidelines through a commitment to uplifting Australia’s capability in Indo-Pacific languages. Perhaps an uncomfortable truth and conversation at times, the monolingual nature of Australia has continued to jeopardise the depth and breadth of our regional engagement.
So, the new language stream enhances Australia’s Asia literacy, with nominations encouraged where language study is a key focus (2.2.1, 4.2). Scholars will undertake programs where at least half of the study is of an official or commonly spoken language (other than English) of an eligible NCP host location; with credit towards their Australian degree. While there may be some natural operational teething issues in bringing this to life, the upside is the recognition and celebration of language and opportunity to feed this aspiration into the broader education sector.
The prioritisation given to longer language study experiences and a larger language-focused study load is an overt and incentivised message to current and future students and institutions that language knowledge underpins regional engagement. It’s a commitment to encourage and reward the pursuit of language within higher education.
However, NCP can’t, won’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) reshape our national language profile on its own. Liam Prince, Director ACICIS Study Indonesia, recently spoke to this with passion, a wealth of experience and depth of knowledge on the Global Horizons Podcast about the role language plays in regional engagement; beyond NCP, he highlights the valuable contributions within the broader language ecosystem and pathways through primary and secondary school. So, while not the whole solution, the NCP commitment forms a valuable centrepiece for the systemic rethink called for by organisations such as the Asian Studies Association of Australia and Asia Education Foundation who promote knowledge of Asia across the school systems.
Combined with ongoing OS-HELP language grants and the Indo-Pacific regionally focussed supplement (TKN 24 Oct 23) the incentives and recognition continue to line up in support of language pursuit and acquisition. Its clear government is talking and building blocks of programming designed to support each other. This now includes establishment of the NCP Language Fellow (6.3) to raise the bar and profile of language studies. Elevating the language capability of Scholars is evidence of program maturation, with Fellows playing a leadership role to promote the NCP in the region and its objectives during their scholarship and afterwards as part of the NCP alumni network
Perhaps this was foreshadowed by The Hon Tim Watts MP in his address to NCP 2024 Scholars, reinforcing that “underpinning our engagement is our understanding of our region and our ability to shape it… Asia capability… that means speaking Asian languages”. This supports a commitment to a deeper understanding of the rich cultures across the region. Evidence of student interest and perhaps an insight into the future uptake of this elevation of language studies is the work of Keri Ramirez at Studymove, his research showing 31% of students rank ‘learning a language and new culture’ as the most important element of their international study experience.
Immersive experiences
In building immersive experiences, several Scholar program timelines have also been recalibrated;
- Increasing minimum duration of full-time internships to two weeks (5.2.2)
- Allowing a maximum of two secondary host locations while on scholarship (5.5.3)
- Setting minimum duration of full-time language training to two weeks (5.2.4)
Thematically these all build the expectation of more time into programs. Time spent in the workplace, time spent in country and time spent immersed in language acquisition.
Fee support
To underpin growth across the region, NCP looks to establish, invest in and support the build of new points of connectivity, enabling institutions, academics, industry partners and students to come together in new consortia and project groups. Fee support acknowledges that where no exchange or other agreement exist, study abroad becomes a stepping stone to creating future relationships. As a result, the fee-paying option, over existing exchange relationships, enables students to attend host universities as an international fee-paying student.
Recognising an increase in host university fees the maximum total benefit for tuition fees for study components increases to $15,000 per semester, and $10,000 per trimester (5.4.2), and the $20,000 combined tuition fee benefit cap for study and language training component removed.
Reflection
Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tim Watts, has been tasked with chairing an External Advisory Group to now consult with the sector and other experts in ensuring the New Colombo Plan is fit for purpose. With 2024 marking the 10th Anniversary of NCP, its short and publicly celebrated life has delivered heightened success in an international education setting where similar historical initiatives have previously suffered and stumbled through renaming and branding, repurposing or funding challenges, disappearing as quicky as they germinated. It’s important at this point to pause and reflect, that Australian Learning Abroad has never (not ever) been so well funded, celebrated, profiled, so closely aligned to foreign policy, had the eyes and ears of senior Minsters and the diplomatic corps and been such an engaging tool to link with industry and higher education partners across the region.
In an overview of the changes, Professor Tran notes “any reforms to the NCP must follow an evidence-based approach and take into consideration the needs of students and home and host institutions and be developed in close consultation with the sector.” So, true of any policy reform – the socialisation of ideas, co-design and co-delivery with the sector and the buy into the kaleidoscope of rich and diverse policy agendas that are at play are important attributes that need the diverse input of many sitting around the table.
So, the bipartisan support afforded to NCP and its influence in bringing disparate groups together across the sector should not be under estimated. This is testament to the fact that it’s simply a world class initiative. As the Scholars program continues to cement its place as a key pillar among a suite of foreign policy levers, the consultations led by the Assistant Minister will form a critical part of defining NCP 2.0. A quick win for this consultation of course is to tap the immense concentration of expertise, experience and energy that has converged on the Gold Coast at the IEAA Learning Abroad Forum this week.
Learning Abroad, a sector still decimated by Covid, is fighting its way back as a key contributor to Australia’s reputation in the region. At its 2019 peak, 49% of all Australian Learning Abroad was into the Indo Pacific region; over 28,000 young Australians. Transitioning these Scholar program changes is a huge ask; being cognisant that with change comes a reshuffle and redistribution of work and priorities, these are tasks that universities will inevitably undertake through the groups of passionate staff that bring Learning Abroad to life. So, a shout out to the ILO community, Study Abroad offices and other stakeholders who do the seriously heavy lifting to get students out and supported in the region.
As outcomes there is much to celebrate, gain and significant upside in the elevation of Scholar engagement with the Indo Pacific region, through; the increase student volume, focus on language prioritisation and the levers of financial support. The Koala welcomes the announcements by the Foreign Minister and the opportunity to support the Assistant Ministers consultations that grow the NCP capability to enable young people to undertake study, language training and internships in the Indo-Pacific.
Advice to applicants and full list of key changes are here.
Nominations by institutions through GrantConnect here.
Note: Parentheses numbers e.g. (5.4.2) refer to sections within the 2025 Scholarship guidelines document available through GrantConnect.
