Public Diplomacy and Social Impact of Australian Student Mobility to the Indo-Pacific: Host Countries’ Perspectives on Hosting New Colombo Plan Students

Abstract

Learning abroad is a primary dimension of internationalization of higher education, but little is known about the social impact of learning abroad. While a significant body of the literature in international education has examined learning abroad from the student and academic perspectives, how host communities, especially in the Indo-Pacific, perceive the social impact of hosting students from an Anglophone country like Australia is underresearched. This study addresses this critical gap in the literature by exploring the social impact of Australian students’ learning in the Indo-Pacific from the host perspective. This article emerges from an ongoing study on Australian students’ learning in the Indo-Pacific via the New Colombo Plan (NCP), the Australian government’s signature initiative of student mobility and public diplomacy. It focuses on data from 32 interviews with host organizations, including industry firms, small businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and education institutions, in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The study shows that not only does the Australian government position the NCP as a strategic public diplomacy tool to build lasting relationships with Indo-Pacific countries, but receiving countries also view the NCP as a catalyst that facilitates the execution of their international agenda. The study identifies four main forms of social impact associated with Australian students’ learning abroad in the Indo-Pacific, perceived by the host communities: (a) strengthening bilateral and international ties; (b) fostering student-to-student, university-to-industry, and university-to-university partnerships; (c) strengthening community engagement through service-learning; and (d) enriching host organization’s training capacity, human resources, and awareness of their own values.

Keywords

social impact student mobility learning abroad international education Australia the Indo-Pacific region public diplomacy New Colombo Plan Vietnam Japan China Indonesia Malaysia

Introduction

Universities are under growing pressures to respond to emerging challenges as a result of globalization forces, local demands, the knowledge economy, shifting labor markets, and particularly crises such as the global financial crisis, natural disasters, and pandemics. Universities are increasingly expected to engage with wider society, integrate social responsibility into their missions, and meet new societal needs. While universities’ traditional missions of teaching and research continue to be essential, other dimensions such as technology transfer and social engagement have emerged as critical components which are often referred to as the third mission of higher education (HE) (Berghaeuser & Hoelscher, 2020). The expanding role of social engagement of HE beyond its traditional missions to address important economic, social, environmental, and public health challenges contributes to increasing HE’s impact on society (Berghaeuser & Hoelscher, 2020; Bernardo et al., 2012).

The social responsibility of universities has been discussed for decades across the globe. However, within the international education context, the social role of universities is limited to academic communities preventing HE from realizing its enormous potential to contribute to solving major social issues locally and globally (Brandenburg et al., 2019). Due to increased competition, pressures on revenue generation, reputation, and branding, the values that have driven international education activities such as exchange and cooperation, peace and mutual understandings, human capital development, and solidarity have become marginalized, and the three core components of HE—education, research, and social engagement—have little alignment (De Wit, 2020). International education should be considered as a tool to support social engagement and responsibility (Brandenburg et al., 2019) and the dimensions of internationalization such as “citizenship development, employability, and improvement of the quality of research, education, and service to society” need more attention (De Wit, 2020, p. iii).

This article is derived from a larger ongoing study that includes fieldwork in the Indo-Pacific,¹ a survey, and 250 semi-structured interviews (at this stage) with Australian academics, mobility staff, government representatives, students, and host communities in the Indo-Pacific region. The main goal of the broader study is to examine Australian students’ learning and engagement in the Indo-Pacific supported by the New Colombo Plan (NCP), which aims to provide students with an exposure to and lift their knowledge about the region. This article analyses host perspectives about the social impact of learning abroad via this major mobility program initiated by the Australian government. It begins with a review of the literature on the social responsibility and community engagement of universities. It then addresses the key issues related to learning abroad in the Indo-Pacific and an overview of the NCP. This will be followed by a discussion of the conceptual framework and the research design. The perspectives of host organizations in the Indo-Pacific about the social impact of hosting Australian students will be analyzed and implications will be drawn.

Higher Education for Society

The terms “corporate social responsibility” and “community engagement” are often used interchangeably to describe the responsibility of HE to society. Corporate social responsibility in the HE sector is defined as

the capacity of the university to disseminate and implement a body of principles and general and specific values, by means of four key processes—management, teaching, research, and university extension—to respond to the needs of the university community, and in this framing, their “country” as a whole. (Garde Sánchez et al., 2013, p. 710)

Activities that assist universities to carry out their social responsibility include incorporating ethical and environmental issues into the curriculum; transferring knowledge to society in research; developing codes of good governance including the extension of the role of external stakeholders in university governance in management; promoting corporate citizenship and civic values; and contributing to socioeconomic environment as community engagement (Larrán Jorge & Andrades Peña, 2017).

The purpose of community engagement as a mission of HE is to build partnerships with the public and private sectors to strengthen the research and teaching and learning missions of the university and at the same time address critical issues in society (Carnegie Foundation 2020). Community engagement is defined as “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (Carnegie Foundation 2020, p. 1). Similarly, Jacob et al. (2015, p. 1) refer to community engagement in HE as creating and strengthening the connections between HE institutions and communities at local, national, regional, and international levels. These authors posit that community engagement activities can be formal or informal and can include a wide range of initiatives such as establishing relationships and collaborations with different partners, co-sponsored meetings, conferences, sport events, and research projects.

Central to the concept of community engagement is the emphasis on the relationships between universities and external partners, which are determined by the qualities of mutual respect and understanding, reciprocity, and realization of common goals for mutual benefits. Community engagement can be facilitated through exchange of knowledge and resources. Winter et al. (2006) documented seven dimensions of community engagement of HE which are embraced through teaching and learning, research, business, economic, social and cultural connections and partnerships with organizations and industry. Community engagement has become an important driver for universities to diversify resources for the benefits of both the universities and the communities. For example, community-based activities help participants such as academics navigate a larger funding context as a generator of social and economic capitals (Dempsey, 2010).

Australian Student Mobility to the Indo-Pacific Region

Outbound student mobility has become an important dimension of internationalization of HE. The past decades have witnessed much emphasis on the need to increase students’ global competencies in the “Global North,” especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe through short-term student mobility programs (Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015). Examples of these learning abroad programs that are driven by strategic government agendas include the Erasmus Mundus project in Europe, the Fulbright program in the United States, and the NCP in Australia. Learning abroad programs are reported to enable students to enhance intercultural understandings and adaptability (Chwialkowska, 2020; Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015; Tran et al., 2021), develop international and inter-personal skills (Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015; Tran & Vu, 2018), and acquire global competencies (Whatley et al., 2021). These developments are believed to subsequently increase students’ employability skills and employment prospects (Tran et al., 2019). Therefore, universities often refer to outbound student mobility as a response to an increasing need of educating their students to become global citizens (Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015). However, existing research suggests the need to treat assumptions about the benefits of outbound programs with caution since learning abroad does not always automatically lead to student developments (Green & Mertova, 2014; Tran & Rahimi, 2018).

In Australia, outbound student mobility includes exchange, semester or year-long programs, short-term programs, internship or practical placements, and research-related and community engagement (Australian Government, 2019). These programs aim to help students acquire international experiences that will support them to develop their global citizenship competencies and employability. Traditionally, destinations for Australian outbound students were Anglophone countries, driven by the students’ desire to study at high-ranked institutions in English-speaking countries with similar cultural environment (Tran & Rahimi, 2018). A study by Dall’Alba and Sidhu (2015) reveals that the majority of their student sample came from middle-class families, which indicates that outbound mobility tended to be more common among this group, and their most popular study destinations were Europe and North America. To encourage Australian students to gain international experiences in the Indo-Pacific region, the NCP was introduced in 2014 as the Australian government’s signature initiative in their foreign policy through which strengthening the nation’s image and position in the Indo-Pacific is intimately linked to outbound student mobility. The NCP offers grants for Australian undergraduate students to undertake up to 18-month study or to participate in one semester or a short-term mobility program (Tran & Rahimi, 2018).

Unlike other outbound mobility programs, the NCP is the first to be developed and delivered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). This outbound mobility initiative has a social and political responsibility as a core component in Australia’s foreign policy agenda to engage with the Indo-Pacific. Tuch (1990) defines public diplomacy as “a government’s process of communication with foreign publics in an attempt to bring about understanding for its nation’s ideas and ideals, its institutions and culture, as well as its national goals and policies” (p. 3). This can be achieved through different activities and programs directed abroad in multiple fields including information, education, and culture to influence a foreign government through influencing its citizens (Frederick, 1993). The primary goal of the NCP program is “to lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to study and undertake internships in the region” (DFAT, 2019, para. 1) which is expected to contribute to the program’s social responsibility as enhancing Australia’s standing in the region. This core goal is framed by positioning student mobility as a mechanism to realize a broader social responsibility through creating and strengthening regional engagement (Tran & Rahimi, 2018, p. 12). By the end of 2020, the NCP alumni are expected to reach around 40,000 young Australians, providing them with experiences of living, studying, and undertaking internships in the Indo-Pacific (DFAT, 2019).

Positioning Theory as a Conceptual Frame

This article draws on positioning theory as a conceptual lens to interpret the perspectives and experiences of the communities in the Indo-Pacific who host Australian students through the NCP programs. Positioning often occurs in a certain context which is determined by moral orders referred to as sets of rights and duties created by declarations with deontic powers (Van Langenhove, 2017). These rights and duties are embedded in socioculturally specific systems that can both enable or hinder what can be done in a given situation (James, 2015). James further claims that (a) moral orders can include cultural, legal, and institutional orders that are preestablished and will determine the actor’s positions with certain powers; (b) these initial positions can be positive or negative and can be confirmed or changed; and (c) actor’s personal orders influence what they will say and do, including refuting or accepting the preexisting positions. Likewise, Barnes (2014) asserts that how people are positioned depends on “the context and community values and on the personal characteristics of all the individuals concerned, their personal history, their preferences and their capabilities” (p. 3). Some moral norms are universal in a given society while others are locally constructed understandings of rights and responsibilities (Van Langenhove, 2017). Traditions and customs (Moghaddam et al., 2007) and rules and habits (Van Langenhove, 2017) are among the structural factors that determine what people can and will do in a given situation.

Van Langenhove and Harré (1999) depict four types of intentional positioning. Deliberate self-positioning involves an individual expressing their personality through discursive practices to achieve particular goals. Forced self-positioning occurs when an individual position is formed by external forces. Deliberate positioning of others refers to people deliberately positioning someone else for a specific reason regardless of whether the one being positioned is present. Forced positioning of others occurs when people deliberately position others because of external forces, with or without the presence of the one being positioned.

The social engagement dimension of learning abroad programs through the NCP can be regarded as moral orders that shape the positions taken by different parties involved in the program. For example, under the NCP, outbound students are positioned as actors or future actors who exercise the public diplomatic role by engaging in people-to-people connections that contribute to building long-term relationships between home and host countries (Tran & Vu, 2018). In this way, positioning theory is used as a theoretical lens to understand the social responsibility of international education within the NCP context.

The Research

This article focuses on data from 32 semi-structured interviews with organizations, including universities, industry firms, small businesses, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), that host NCP students in the Indo-Pacific, including China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The interviewees were selected based on their involvement in hosting Australian NCP students during their study, work placements, and internships in the Indo-Pacific. The researchers first interviewed NCP students and based on their recommendations, contacted representatives from their host organizations to ask whether they were interested in participating in this research. Plain language statement and consent form were sent to these potential host participants, and those who agreed to participate were invited to an interview via phone or face to face. Participants and their organizations are kept anonymous.

The overall aim of this article is to understand the social impact of the NCP program from host perspectives and experiences. The interview questions aim to understand host communities’ motivations to host Australian NCP students and their perceptions of the social impact, opportunities, and challenges in so doing. The semi-structured interviews allow host organizations to share their thoughts and insights about what they perceive as the social impacts of hosting Australian students via the NCP programs. In line with the semi-structured interview approach (Glaser & Strauss, 2017), we used some guided questions but allowed flexibility and space to elicit hosts’ articulation of what the social impacts of hosting NCP students are. The researchers asked a key question related to a specific theme and the hosts’ responses led to follow-up impromptu questions. Each interview lasted between 20 and 30 minutes. All interviews were audio-taped with the participants’ consent. They were then transcribed and coded using NVivo 12 software, which facilitated open-ended thematic categorization of the data. We then identified prominent patterns and the key meanings and used positioning theory to interpret the forms of social impact of the NCP program, perceived by host organizations.

Findings and Discussions

The findings of this study report that the NCP has facilitated the participation of host organizations of different entities from a range of sectors including universities, industry firms, small businesses, and NGOs from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The NCP’s social engagement is therefore not just confined to the academic world but highlights its core mission of improving mutual understandings and building sustaining relationships with the countries in the Indo-Pacific region. The following section is organized around the data related to host communities’ perspectives on the four prominent forms of social impact associated with Australian students’ learning abroad in the Indo-Pacific: contributing to country-to-country connections; fostering multiple student-to-student, university-to-industry and university-to-university partnerships; strengthening community engagement through international service-learning; and enriching host communities’ training capacity, human resources, and awareness of their own strengths.

Country-to-Country Connections

The NCP is used as a public diplomacy mechanism by the Australian government to strengthen Australia’s strategic position and influence in the Info-Pacific region as a form of national capital accumulation. Building lasting relationships with host countries within the region through this program is not only embedded in the NCP as part of Australia’s foreign policy but also observed and acknowledged by participating host countries as long-term impacts of learning abroad, as reflected in the following interview excerpts:

Another thing we should consider is the political relations. Traditionally, students outbound happens between countries who share the same political view or having close relationship, for example Vietnamese students to Lao, to China, to Russia, to Australia or to the United States. I believe we still have students studying abroad under the influence of politics and economics among nations. (University, Vietnam)

Australia right now is giving priorities for Indonesian students to gain some things like vocational knowledge, because this is in line with the regulations of our government regarding to the development of the vocational studies. Indonesian universities tend to do it with Australian universities . . . If you [universities in Indonesia] want to receive our grants to do the accreditation program or student mobility program, we do really hope that you can do the reciprocal principle with the foreign university. (Government representative, Indonesia)

. . . you know, in China, nowadays, at a government level, maybe nationally or provincially, and they support universities and schools to do some collaboration, cooperation, internationally. (University, China)

Regarding our motivation, we receive our funding mainly from the Australia Government in the NCP program. One of our responsibilities is public diplomacy then we consider receiving Australia students is our responsibility. (NGO, Vietnam)

Being distinctive from other outbound mobility programs, the NCP is the first to be developed and delivered by the DFAT. This public diplomacy dimension emerged prominently from the interview data as moral orders that set out the context of the program and determine actors’ position within this context. Within positioning theory, Van Langenhove (2017) posited “moral orders can be regarded as sets of rights and duties created by declarations with deontic powers” (p. 4). This study reveals that at the macro level, not only does the Australian government explicitly position the NCP as a strategic tool to build lasting relationships with countries in the Indo-Pacific region, but receiving countries also view the NCP as a catalyst that facilitates the execution of their international agenda. This enduring country-to-country connection is facilitated by the accumulation of international insights, experiences, and friendships at the individual and institutional levels (Tran et al., 2021; Tran & Vu, 2018) that foster potential mutual understandings, and collaborations across individual and collective levels.

In addition, the NCP’s provision of funding to facilitate student mobility acts as an external force that influences host organizations’ positioning. In the last excerpt, the interviewee self-positions as being a fund receiver who has the right to utilize this financial support from the Australian government to participate in the program. Therefore, their organization has the corresponding duties to host Australian students. This finding echoes the important role of the NCP as a financial supporter that facilitates student mobility from participating student perspectives (Tran et al., 2021). Funding international education activities can influence the directions, motivations, and main professional or ethical aspects of the internationalization process, and the way the fund is executed at the national level can define what internationalization is in certain contexts (Matei et al., 2015). While the public diplomacy function of the NCP has been reported mostly from home perspectives (e.g., Byrne, 2016; Tran & Vu, 2018), this study shows the impact of this public diplomacy policy on shaping host communities’ positions and perspectives that contribute to fostering connections between sending and receiving countries.

Multiple Connections

The NCP was reported to create opportunities for participating students to accumulate their social capital through making connections with host countries (e.g., Tran & Vu, 2018). In this study, these connections are not only formed between home and host students; rather, there were multiple connections made between students from various countries who participated in the host organizations’ projects.

It also builds up the relationship with not only students, but also campers coming from other universities, and to build their connections. Which hopefully can be their future research partners . . . Yeah, it’s a really great opportunity for students to connect with. It’s not just China-Australia, it’s being international. (University, China)

From our point of view we try to create several different communities amongst students. They have the dormitory community where they share and they grow together with other international students. Not only just with Vietnamese, when they are in the dormitory they stay. (University, Vietnam)

Making university-to-university connections through participating in the NCP was also referred to as greatly important by the interviewees.

Because we try to build very good relationships with Australian universities right now which is quite difficult previously, because—I don’t know, probably because of the funding or the cost. So right now, we try to build that. (Government representative, Indonesia)

My university—that is to say, after so many years, they try to do some international cooperation and programs with American universities, with Australian universities, but all of this it seems not go deeper . . . So at this time, the university is eager to do some real work . . . to have some connection educationally, to learn from such programs, to introduce some good systems. (University, China)

In addition, the interview responses highlight the opportunities for host universities to strengthen their industry links and partnerships as a form of organizational capital accumulation as illustrated in the following interview conversation.

Interview: Okay, excellent. So who are the industry partners that you work with?

Interviewee: Well, who are they not? Let’s see, we work with a very broad range. Like we’ve sent students, you know, they go to Unilever. We’ve had some that go to sort of smaller start up companies. We have games companies. So there’s a company called Glass Egg that do computer games. CPA Australia has some of our students. Heineken. Yeah, so big and small . . . But it was sort of a, we actually have so many internships here that we have industry partners keep asking us for more interns. So trying to figure out how do we get more interns, we used NCP as a bit of a vehicle to support that. (University, Vietnam)

A similar view on the NCP as a generator of multiple participating stakeholders was noted by a third-party provider who assists to connect home and host organizations to support NCP students’ study and internships:

So we’re signing an MOU with them—we need more engineering companies for our engineering interns for University of Melbourne and Deakin, and QUT …they’ll help us advertise to their companies, and they will allow our students to come to their annual gala dinner, and we’re also going to run a workshop one Saturday out with the Monash Engineers Australia, Malaysia chapter, Monash Youth Group or something. (Third party provider, Malaysia)

From the host perspective, NCP students have an opportunity to make multiple connections with students of different countries described as “international connections.” However, previous research revealed that while NCP students make initial connections with the host communities as a result of their learning abroad programs, these connections may not automatically be translated to the expansion of their social capital and of their sustainment of transnational networks (Tran & Vu, 2018). Similar to this proposition, the informants of this study use deliberate positioning of others (Van Langenhove and Harré, 1999) with “others” here referred to the NCP students who are given the opportunities to make multiple connections with their peers from different countries. The informants do not expect an immediate outcome of these connections; rather, they position these as a stepping stone for future collaborative opportunities. Similar views were found in the case of university-to-university connections where host universities expect the connections made through participating in the NCP will pave the way for more sustainable relationships in the future. Whether these connections can be expanded and translated into more tangible outcomes will likely depend on how the students as well as the home and host organizations nurture, sustain, and develop them. This finding echoes the proposition that while the NCP acts as a bridge to future and long-term collaborations and partnerships among participating organizations, further effort may be required to build a lasting partnership (Byrne, 2016).

Unlike NCP students whose social capital may not necessarily be reproduced or expanded, the host responses reveal that by participating in the NCP, host institutions can accumulate and enrich their social capital value. Within positioning theory, the informant from a university in Vietnam uses deliberate positing of others to articulate their partnerships with different industry firms. When being asked about who the industry partners are, this interviewee uses a rhetorical question “who are they not?” to express the many partners they are working with. In this case, this university positions the NCP as a means for them to increase their industry links, diversify partners’ portfolios and sustain these ongoing relationships as a form of social capital accumulation, as emphasized “. . . they come asking for [intern]. We’re literally unable to fill them and we have to, they will come and say, ‘We need 12 interns.’ We’re like I can’t give you 12 interns.” Notably, this finding suggests that while the connections made by NCP students with host countries may require more time and effort to translate into more tangible outcomes which is consistent with Tran and Vu’s (2018) earlier article, the outcomes of the connections made by host universities with different industry partners seem to be more immediate and tangible.

Community Engagement Through International Service-Learning

The community engagement dimension is often incorporated as an integral part of the NCP through international service-learning. For some of the host universities, this dimension involves volunteering activities such as assisting at local English clubs or fundraising project designed to increase the students’ exposure to local communities alongside the core academic component of the study program as presented in the following excerpts:

Some of students go—went to communities with their volunteers to go some English club in communities and all of students took part in English Corner on campus each week, twice. So that’s kind of community life on campus. (University, China)

And there are also sort of volunteering opportunities where each semester there’s a sort of fundraising drive, which is all driven by the students themselves. So there’s always, the volunteers, what they are raising money for, is always different, some new course for every semester. (University, Vietnam)

For host organizations whose work is to meet societal needs, improve communities, and promote citizen participation such as NGOs, community engagement is the core of their everyday business. Therefore, NCP students hosted by these organizations often have this dimension prebuilt in their study program, resulting in a deeper engagement, and more explicit and significant impacts. The following excerpt reflects the students’ work to promote a local mountainous community as a tourism destination:

It is one of our initiatives in livelihood to develop community tourism in Da Bac. At that time, we made a team of 3 M students and 1 French student. They together went to Da Bac and the Australian students invited the French student to be the male character in the clip. They use the clip to promote the sightseeing in Da Bac and culture exchange. We posted it on the tourism website of Da Bac Tourism. (NGO, Vietnam)

Raising awareness of social problems through service-learning that subsequently results in learning transformation is also an essential part of community engagement. The following extracted conversation articulates how a host organization expects NCP students to increase awareness of and develop their understandings about the problems facing the local rural community and the associated social and economic implications for this community. In this regard, community engagement through learning abroad in Japan is framed beyond the neon lights of Tokyo, popular to Australian tourists to Japan, to the rural region facing consequences of major societal issues such as aging society and low birth rates:

Uh. So. I think mixture of, you know, for them to taste life in Tokyo and also rural area would be very interesting so that they can compare. Mm . . . And then they can see the issue that we’re facing today . . . You know, ageing society and very low a number of percentage of birth rates, and what rural area is facing today. You know, it’s really serious issues. (University, Japan)

Others expect students to play a multiplier role by communicating and sharing their experiences to wider communities after their mobility experience to foster mutual understandings between the home and host nations

We expect the students will understand our people when interacting with the communities who are mostly very poor and ethnic groups. Besides culture exchange, they understand the different culture aspects of Vietnam and the difficulties of ethnic groups. In the long-term, they can contribute and share the information to their communities in Australia, contributing to the relationship between two nations. (NGO, Vietnam)

Not only can the Australian students improve their intercultural understanding, but local people can also experience a completely different culture through interactions with NCP students and reflection on their own culture. These can lead to changes in their worldviews about their current conditions, impacted by nature disasters such as the 2011 Tsunami in Minamisanriku:

For a lot of locals . . . especially for people that have not been outside of this area much, having the [Australian] students come and, you know, point out the differences or point out what interests them or engages them or what’s insightful to them, it allows them to first understand that, oh, this is different in other places, you know . . . I think it allows us as well to re-examine and re-evaluate and re-understand what, how we stick out . . . I think the big motivation is having people appreciate and enjoy being with, learning from, sharing with and meeting the locals here, . . . and show understanding for the community. (Small business, Japan)

International service-learning through the NCP provides students with an opportunity to engage with host communities in different manners resulting in different outcomes from pure acquisition of knowledge to learning transformation that is more inclusive, discriminating, self-reflective, and integrative of experience (Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). In this study, students are involved in community activities at different levels from attending voluntary projects such as local English-speaking club or fundraising, to a deeper engagement by working on a specific community project to promote tourism of a mountainous area, to raising local community’s self-awareness of their distinctive situation, their own strengths in dealing with adversity, and their self-esteem (see the following discussion).

In the last excerpt, an NCP study tour for Australian students to immerse into the Japanese community is positioned by the fish-man from the local host community who was hit hard by the 2011 Tsunami as an opportunity for local people, through interactions with NCP students, to grapple with the awareness of the new culture and juxtapose with their own culture. The experience of having people of different cultures come in, learn from, and appreciate the local distinctive culture and traditions awakened the local community’s consciousness of their values and of what they can offer. This deeper self-awareness encouraged local people to reflect, reexamine, and reevaluate their current situations from a more positive perspective. Such reflection subsequently resulted in transforming their view and improving their self-esteem. Coryell et al. (2016) reported that through the experiences participating in post-natural disaster projects, outbound students develop their understanding of post-disaster problems and the situations of affected residents and express their empathy with local people. Such an interaction helps local people both make sense of how this experience affects them and give a new meaning to it. The distinctive insights of this finding are grounded in the bidirectional and reciprocal influences of the two groups: the NCP students and the local people resulting in both groups’ transformative perspectives and experiences.

Industry Experiences and Enriching a Host Organization’s Training Capacity and Human Resources

Enhancing graduate employability is an increasingly important HE agenda. Among the different schemes employed to tackle the issue of graduate employability by Australian universities, creating opportunities for students to accumulate practical skills and experiences through internships, work placements, and international study has been critical. The NCP acts as an enabler for participating students to acquire industry skills as reflected in the following excerpts.

I really do think that the experience that the students get here in Vietnam ticks all the boxes for the New Colombo Plan. You know, they do have a fully immersive experience. I think, in particular we host a lot of students that come for some semester long internship programs. And I think that’s just a very sensible use of the NCP program to actually have those fully immersive experiences in industry as well as with the programs here. (University, Vietnam)

And for students studying marine biology and sustainability, it’s life in practice . . . Yeah. I think that would be a good experience because having, having the mix of, you know, being in the learning center as a core base for the trip, but then having maybe one night or two nights in local fishermen’s homes or farmers’ homes, I think would provide a very different and unique experience for the groups. (Small business, Japan)

Some students, it is their first time to work in the office and this time is in Vietnam. They will know the life in Vietnam, our procedure, the differences between our working environment and Australian working environment. They will learn from the new working environment besides the interaction with Vietnamese culture and have the specific knowledge about Vietnamese environment through their research. (NGO, Vietnam)

The interactions between the NCP students and industry during the students’ study result in not only the students’ acquisition of necessary work skills and experience but also the host organizations’ accumulation of different forms of capitals as reflected in the following interview responses:

The increase in recruiting these interns will also increase the company’s training capacity. In training the interns, the staff have to play different roles such as procedure training, basic knowledge training, gaming business indicators training, technical training, fine arts training, graphics training. Therefore, the training capacity of our staff has developed. (Industry firm, Vietnam)

But you can see that a lot of companies now can see the value in not just having it as free labor. Your free labor is a bonus. But somebody with great English, somebody that can think a little bit differently, they hope that it will challenge their local staff to think a little bit differently, to practice their English. And also, it’s just fresh ideas. They’re bringing up-to-the-minute ideas, plus they come from a totally different education background. (Third party provider, Malaysia)

You could learn from outside cultures or from, you know, from the [Australian] students. So this could be done, you know, better. But then when you realize what the strengths are, that I think results in pride. And being able to point that out in the future and notice the value in what you, what you do, what may be very normal to people in this community. (Small business, Japan)

While previous studies concentrate on the benefits students gained from engaging with the host communities during their mobility programs (Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015), this study points to the reciprocal impact on the local organizations created by hosting short-term mobility students. In this regard, NCP students are able to not only aggregate industry experiences as a form of cultural capital accumulation but also play a role in creating impacts that contribute to improving hosts’ capital and capacity such as improving training capacity (host in Vietnam), supporting local staff and students with improving their English (hosts in Malaysia and Vietnam), diversifying labor force (host in Malaysia), and increasing local community’s recognition of their values (host in Japan). Community engagement emphasizes the centrality of relationships between university and community which is framed by “mutuality of outcomes, goals, trust, and respect” (Bernardo et al., 2012, p. 188). This finding reinforces the argument that it is necessary to treat mobility students as potential knowledge agents who can contest the practice of “othering,” actively co-construct and mobilize their knowledge to make changes (e.g., Townsin & Walsh, 2016).

Concluding Remarks

A significant body of the literature in international education has examined the benefits, opportunities, and challenges of learning abroad from multiple perspectives, including academics as trip leaders and students. However, little is known about why host organizations in the Indo-Pacific are motivated to host students from Anglophone countries like Australia and what they perceive as the impacts of hosting those students on their organizations and their countries. This study addresses the paucity in the existing literature by exploring the social impacts of learning abroad from the host perspective. The findings of the study elucidate the possible social impacts generated by learning abroad as one of the key dimensions of international education. It identifies four main forms of social impact associated with Australian students’ learning abroad in the Indo-Pacific, perceived by the host communities, including contributing to country-to-country connections, fostering multiple student-to-student, university-to-industry, and university-to-university connections, enriching host communities’ training capacity, human resources and awareness of their own strengths, and strengthening community engagement through international service-learning.

The findings of the study show how host organizations position the mobility programs and the Australian students participating in these programs as actors of public diplomacy assisting with the realization of country-to-country connections and as vehicles to increase and humanize their industry links and transnational university partnerships. At the organizational level, host communities position Australian students who study, undertake interships, or visit their organizations as more than mere visitors but as valuable actors who have the potential to make a contribution to improving their training capacity, supporting local staff and students with improving their English, diversifying labor force, and increasing local community’s awareness of their own values and strengths. While this article concentrates on elucidating the perceived social impact of learning abroad on host communities, it does not assume that Australian students’ engagement with the host communities in the Indo-Pacific is without tensions and challenges facing both sides. However, this will be the focus of a subsequent article arising from this study.

The findings from this empirical study indicate important implications for the key stakeholders: Australian students, universities, and government and host organizations. It is essential for Australian universities to encourage and assist their students’ development of background understandings about their host organizations and host countries prior to the departure. It is also imperative for Australian students to engage with the broader ecosystem in which the NCP program is situated and increase their understandings of the potential social impact of their engagement with the host communities in the Indo-Pacific region. There should be a more coherent and coordinated mechanism, co-designed by the government, home and host universities, and host organizations, to help NCP alumni maintain deeper and ongoing connections with their host communities. Australian universities and the government should also consider closer engagement with host universities and organizations in all phases of development and delivery of the NCP programs to ensure a better alignment of the programs with not only the home but also the host values and missions. In this way, the program will be of mutual benefits to both the home and host organizations and home and host countries. Informed understandings of host motives, needs, and circumstances help ensure that Australian student mobility to the Indo-Pacific, supported by the NCP initiative, is not just within Australia’s self-interests but rather, serves the mutual interests of both Australia and other countries in the Indo-Pacific which have willingly hosted Australian students. The acknowledgment of and respect for mutual values of home and host communities in students mobility are essential foundations for building and sustaining meaningful people-to-people connections, institution-to-institution connections, country-to-country connections, and broader multilateral ties.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Australian Research Council; Grant ID: FT170100101.

ORCID iD

Ly Thi Tran

Notes

Author Biographies

Ly Thi Tran is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and professor in the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia. Her research interests include graduate employability, student mobility, international education and Vietnamese education.

Huyen Bui is a research fellow in the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia. Her research interests include international student acculturation, student mobility, international graduate employability, and transnational education.

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