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Why Australia Struggles to Foster Asia Experts

A new government report looks at Australia’s “Asia capability” and finds the country wanting.

Earlier this month, the Australian government published an inquiry into the development of the country’s Asia capability titled “Security and Prosperity in Asia: Building Asia Capability in Australia through the Education System and Beyond.” The capability this inquiry sought to evaluate includes the teaching and learning of Asian languages and cultures, alongside how best to facilitate the public’s broader regional engagement. 

The report argued that Australia’s prosperity, diplomacy, and strategic independence increasingly depend on Australians developing stronger knowledge of the Asian region; yet the institutions responsible for building this capability are weakening. Without a public who have a good ability to understand and engage effectively with Asia, there is a diminished capacity for Australia to advance itself and secure its future. 

The report distinguished between general Asia literacy for the broader population and the deeper specialist expertise required for diplomats, researchers, business leaders, defense officials, and policymakers. Yet the former feeds into the latter. Without a high baseline of knowledge within the general public, it is more difficult for the country to produce the critical mass of experts required to do the specialist roles. Schools should provide all students with a strong general knowledge of the region, and then universities can hone this into producing highly skilled experts with advanced knowledge. 

The report highlighted that this pipeline is exhibiting serious problems. It presented evidence that fewer Australians are studying Asian languages than in previous decades, particularly in languages deemed to be the priority for the Australian government – Indonesian, Japanese, and Mandarin. These have fallen sharply in secondary schools, and declined dramatically at universities. 

The study of Indonesian was singled out as facing a crisis. Indonesia is Australia’s largest near neighbor, so strategically it should be considered a vital subject. Yet the report described study of the Indonesian language as approaching “functional extinction” within the education systems of some states. 

This decline risks having a compounding effect. With fewer students studying Asian languages at school, universities will reduce or close language programs due to low demand. This then diminishes the number of future teachers, academics, and researchers required to sustain the system. The report warned that Australia risks losing the institutional capacity to build the Asia expertise it requires. 

There are some structural hurdles that Australia faces. The first is that........

© The Diplomat