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Speech
THE HONOURABLE JULIE BISHOP MP
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TRAINING
OPENING ADDRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION FORUM
BRISBANE CONVENTION AND ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE
4 APRIL 2006
Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all to the International Education Forum 2006. In particular I welcome education ministers and other distinguished guests, speakers and delegates – many of whom have travelled from all over the world to be here today.
I acknowledge my ministerial colleague, Gary Hardgrave, the Federal Minister for Vocational and Technical Education.
The theme of the Forum is ‘challenge your thinking. I invite you all – as leaders in international education – to set aside any everyday, short-term concerns, and as important as they may be, set aside your conventional thinking. We are here to consider the ‘big picture’ of issues and trends that will determine the shape of international education globally over the next 10 to 20 years.
This conference does not aim only to challenge the thinking of education providers.
I will be challenging my own thinking and assumptions. I will most certainly be challenging the thinking of my department and departmental officials and my colleagues in the region – we must challenge our current assumptions and approaches if we are to shape our future, not merely react to it.
The international education sector has entered a time of accelerating structural change. Broader social, economic, technological and demographic changes will have a massive impact on education over the next 20 years.
The key questions for the Forum are:
- What will the world be like in 2026?
- How will a changed – and possibly unrecognisable – environment affect international education?
- How can we work together for the benefit of all?
A meeting of education ministers from the Asia-Pacific region and beyond is taking place at the same time as the Forum and like the Forum, the Ministers’ Meeting is a first for our region and I am honoured to host nearly 30 Ministers and senior officials, from Turkey in the west through Asia into the Pacific as far east as the Marshall Islands . And we have an observer from Brazil.
This is a unique opportunity for discussion at the highest level of government. More than ever before, success and prosperity depend on knowledge.
This puts education among the first responsibilities of every government in every country.
Just two weeks ago in Singapore, the South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation met to discuss how education must evolve to meet the changing needs of countries at different stages of development.
This week’s Ministers Meeting shows how seriously governments take this responsibility. We met last night, we’ll continue our dialogue today – in plenary with the Forum – and at our Ministerial roundtable this afternoon.
We will share perspectives on working together, on student mobility and research collaboration. We’ll consider the changes – in qualifications recognition, credit transfer, quality assurance, and alignment between regional systems needed to succeed. We will discuss achievable goals.
Education is rapidly becoming globalised. A global education sector is bigger than any single country’s perspectives or policies. Many of you have studied outside your own countries. I was privileged to be an international student at Harvard. But, whether or not we have had the chance for international study, we can work together to create the environment for a successful education future. In doing so, we are contributing to the development and peaceful prosperity for all our countries.
For centuries, people have travelled for education. In medieval Europe, scholars and students travelled freely without regard for political boundaries. In more recent times, Germany, France and England have all been education magnets for students, teachers and researchers from across Europe and beyond. The Islamic world has a long tradition of international scholarship. India and China have both been centres of learning for locals and foreigners
The concept of international education as an opportunity really took off in the decades after World War II. There was a large increase in education aid, scholarships and other initiatives to encourage international exchange.
- The United States established the Fulbright Programme in 1946.
- From 1951, the Colombo Plan brought together countries from South and South East Asia and the Commonwealth. Over 40,000 people came to Australia to study under the Colombo Plan. Many thousands more travelled elsewhere in the Colombo Plan area.
- From the beginning of the 1960s, the British Council significantly increased its involvement in educational programmes and training schemes in Africa and Asia and these exchanges strengthened regional links. Alumni of the Colombo Plan include many political, business and academic leaders in our region.
An outstanding example is Pehin Sri, the Chief Minister of Sarawak, who studied law at the University of Adelaide, as I did. Pehin Sri has observed that ‘Poverty does not exist by itself. Specific causes may vary from place to place, but lack of education is always its cornerstone’.
Among my ministerial colleagues here today, I note that Dr Hidalgo, from the Philippines, and Dr Palefau, from Tonga, are also alumni of Australian institutions.
Increased prosperity in our region and beyond has enabled more and more students to travel to undertake overseas education. In Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the number of international students – especially from Asia – has increased rapidly.
If we look at global trends that have driven this growth, the rise of the developing world since the 1950s is, of course, foremost. As countries – especially in Asia – embarked on the road to development, the need for skilled and educated people increased. As regional economies have grown and diversified, this demand has continued to surge.
Faster and more affordable travel in the jet age and rapid growth in telecommunications and electronic media have made the world smaller, so that living and studying abroad presents fewer obstacles.
Emerging shifts in the balance of global economic and political power will have a strong impact on education. By 2026, there will be new players on the world stage. These countries will be forces in education, just as in economics and politics.
India and China are now world economic and political powers. New regional economic powers such as Turkey, South Korea and Indonesia are emerging. Within these countries, prosperity is spreading, driving the growth of an affluent middle class. These economies are branching into industries based on knowledge and technology. India’s rise as an information technology superpower is an obvious example.
Much of last century’s history of international education and economic development was about knowledge and investment flowing from the developed to the developing world. In a globalised world, this is no longer so.
International enrolments in traditional Western destination countries are no longer growing at the rates that we saw in the 1980s and 1990s. The United States – the world’s number one destination – has even seen a fall in numbers, as countries in our region invest heavily in their education capacity. China now has 20% of its university aged citizens – that’s 23 million people – in higher education, up from 1.4% in 1978. The top Chinese universities, such as Peking, Fudan and Tsinghua, have a justified world reputation.
The same process is underway in other countries across our region and beyond.
Vietnam is investing heavily in education. As a proportion of the national budget, education funding is up by 80% on a decade ago and still increasing. South Korea has expanded its education capacity and is reforming its education sector to give its citizens skills for a competitive world.
The Government of Pakistan is working to modernise and extend its rapidly changing education system. Thailand is reforming its education system to advance quality and access with expansion of e-learning and vocational education a major focus for them.
Other countries are becoming study destinations in their own right.
The Singaporean government is working to make Singapore a regional education hub. Malaysia has developed strategies to boost recruitment of international students – particularly from Indonesia and the Middle East.
Other countries are looking at stepping up their involvement in international education because of the cultural, social, economic and diplomatic benefits it brings.
More countries are offering courses taught in English. Perhaps the rise of English as a common global language is a two-edged sword for traditional destination countries like Australia, the UK and the USA. If Scandinavia and Malaysia are offering degrees in English, could established, English-speaking destinations lose some of their appeal? For the moment, relatively few countries have the capacity to teach in English, but how long will this remain true? Twenty years from now, education in English is likely to be much more widespread. Other languages will become more important globally. By 2026, education in Chinese is likely to have very strong regional appeal. This is already an emerging trend. Demography will be one of the big impacts on international education over the next 20 years.
Very few developed countries have fertility rates at replacement level. Many – especially in Europe – are well below. In Australia, population growth is expected to slow further over coming decades with a youth population in 2026 smaller than today as our population ages. Developed countries are looking to skilled migrants to provide for some of their labour needs.
Elsewhere – especially in the Middle East, South and South East Asia and Africa – populations will continue to grow. In the Middle East, the youth population makes up 60% of the total. The population of the Arab world is expected to double in the next 20 years.
In education terms, that means that some countries will have excess supply of places, while others will continue to experience excess demand.
In Japan, for example, it is predicted that the number of available university places will be equal to the number of applicants by next year. There will be more places than potential students in a few years’ time. Countries such as Japan will have to consider how best to use their excess capacity.
Continuing technological change will impact on how we teach and learn.
- International distance and online education are already thriving.
- New modes of delivery are emerging.
- New alliances and partnerships are being formed across national boundaries and I am pleased that Australia has been at the leading edge of innovation in providing quality education beyond our national boundaries including innovative partnerships that Australian institutions have entered into with education providers around the world.
These new models will become more and more important over the coming decades.
Australian universities face their own challenges in teaching and research as education becomes globalised. Increasingly, we will need to meet international standards and build on areas of strength – for example, biomedicine. We need to attract more international research students to boost our research effort. We must foster an international outlook among Australian students, both through study abroad and through coverage of international issues in our courses. Australian universities must adapt to the impact of innovation overseas and help students and staff to participate in it.
- We have to align our system with evolving common standards of international practice.
- We must build strong institutions of the highest possible quality.
- The aim is quality of outcomes: both in the skills of our graduates and the quality and impact of our research.
The Australian Government is developing a Research Quality Framework, in line with international trends in research assessment. The framework will benchmark Australian research against international standards to measure quality and impact. It will help business and industry to identify Australia’s areas of research excellence. International rankings are here to stay. The Australian Government will make available the best possible information on Australian excellence in research.
- The world has moved a long way towards a global economy in past 25 years. Leading companies are multinational. Technology and knowledge are increasingly mobile.
- So is skilled, educated labour.
- A fully global labour market is likely to develop over the next two decades. The European Union’s designation of 2006 as the Year of Workers’ Mobility reflects these new directions. Education – in all countries – must step up to the challenge of equipping students for a global workplace.
Mobility of skilled labour depends on transferable skills and recognition of qualifications. Governments across the world, including in Australia, are easing the way for qualifications recognition across national boundaries.
The international negotiations and agreements of today point the way to the future.
Forty one countries – including the main international education destinations – signed the Lisbon Convention in 1997. They have acknowledged the basic principle of the Convention: ‘each country shall recognise qualifications as similar to the corresponding qualifications in its own system unless it can be shown that there are substantial differences’.
European countries have embarked on a major programme of reform to their higher education systems through the ‘Bologna Process’. By 2010, 45 nations involved, aim to build a European Higher Education Area. This will make it easier for students to move between institutions through use of common credit transfer systems, a widely recognisable description of the qualification studied and jointly agreed approaches to quality. So the Bologna Process raises critical issues that will challenge our current thinking.
How the Asia-Pacific region approaches these will help define the effectiveness of our higher education systems over coming decades. In our Ministerial discussions, we will be thinking of how to give the issue currency in our region, such as by conducting a review of approaches to mutual recognition of qualifications and quality. For the purpose of starting a discussion on these issues in the Australian higher education sector, I am today releasing a discussion paper on the implications for Australia.
The European Union has also started the Copenhagen Process to support mobility in vocational and technical education. While it is not yet as advanced as the Bologna Process, it confirms the importance of both qualifications recognition and of vocational and technical education.
In our region, multilateral initiatives are taking place within the framework of APEC, including projects to develop common standards for professions for the APEC area.
A number of recent free trade agreements, including the agreement between Australia and the United States, have provisions related to educational and professional recognition. New free trade agreements are being negotiated across the region, such as the regional agreement currently being negotiated between Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN.
Quality assurance will be a big challenge for us over the next 20 years, as education becomes more diverse and internationalised. Quality assurance is fundamental to a genuine expansion of educational opportunity. The rise of transnational delivery of courses will demand innovative approaches on a multilateral basis. We do not want to risk replacing an older educational divide with a new one: where a first-rate education remains the privilege of a few, while the rest gain new access to education, but in a second-rate form.
Such an environment would be unfair to students and to institutions and would be bad for educational outcomes.
All of us – governments, institutions and other stakeholders – must work together for quality education provision.
What students want from their education will be crucial. While they will still need credentialled degrees, they will also want access to ‘just in time’ learning for specific needs and will accept lifelong learning as essential.
The question is: how will we meet their needs?
We will be joined by some very thought-provoking young people this afternoon and tomorrow, who will give us an insight into the needs of the youth of the future.
In a rapidly changing world, requiring constant adaptation to new circumstances and technologies, education will need new ideas and practices. Will students in 2026 be happy to begin their careers with three to five years’ study in isolation from the workforce? It is far more likely that they will demand a closer association with the workforce through work placements and internships.
School education will continue to change, with tomorrow’s schools even more closely linked to the community and its resources.
Parents, tertiary institutions, employers and community organisations will be increasingly engaged in decision-making.
- Students will have greater opportunities to gain work experience and skills.
- Innovative and multidisciplinary approaches will underpin and enrich learning.
- Information and communication technology will be increasingly important to achieving good educational outcomes.
- Schooling will be a stepping stone to lifelong learning.
As part of the challenge to our thinking in government on how we shape the future today, I am ensuring that my Department works with Australian education providers to help Australian students to study abroad. Australia places great value on engagement with the broader Asia-Pacific region. An international study experience builds links between countries and individuals and equips Australians with skills for a globalised world.
Compared with other countries, relatively few Australians take the opportunity to study abroad. I highly recommend it. Today I am announcing a project to increase the number of Australians who study overseas and gain the benefits of an international study experience.
- We need to identify opportunities and obstacles for students. Difficulties with student mobility programmes, credit transfer, financial limitations and course requirements all restrict participation.
- We need to address perceptions of the value of study abroad, including its contribution to graduates’ employability.
- I intend to commission a review that will, over the coming months, work at what we can do to help more Australian students overseas. This will be in both the higher education as well as vocational and technical education sectors, and will examine current practice and make recommendations for improvements. A working group will implement the recommendations and pilot studies will trial new approaches.
In October 2003, the Government released a statement on ‘Engaging the World through Education’. The statement proceeded from recognition of the benefits of international education – benefits to individuals, to societies and economies; to Australia, to the region and the world. Sustainable growth, quality and diversification are the aims of the Government’s engagement with the sector.
We are especially concerned to protect quality, and to ensure quality assurance for Australian courses taught both in Australia – through the Education Services for Overseas Students legislation – and outside Australia – through our Transnational Quality Strategy.
We are working towards best practice in the counselling of future students by international education agents. Education agents play a significant role in counselling and referring international students to Australian institutions, making an important contribution to quality assurance of Australian international education.
The new online Education Agent Training Course, that I am announcing today, will support agents in communicating cutting-edge, accurate and relevant information to international students. The course is skills based and has received an outstanding response in pilot testing.
Following the Government’s statement in 2003, and as part of a package of Budget measures, the Australian Government announced the Endeavour Scholarships programme to support overseas students and scholars to come to Australia, and encourage more Australians to undertake study and research overseas, particularly in the wider Asia-Pacific region.
In July last year, my International Education Advisory Body held a “scenarios” workshop to look to the future. Senior figures from all education sectors and government discussed scenarios for international education in 20 years’ hence. Discussion ranged over geopolitical trends, government policy, technology, economic changes and shifting attitudes to education itself.
To get our left and right brain processes underway today, I’ll offer four different scenarios from this workshop. What might the future bring.
- First scenario: continued leadership from traditional supplier countries with top down education: international education will still be about exporting knowledge from the developed world to everyone else.
- Scenario two: real globalisation with top down education: the international education action has moved to the new economic powers. Today’s education exporters are importing education from the new leaders.
- Scenario three: leadership from traditional supplier countries with “just in time” education: Western economies and corporations, and educational institutions, are still leaders, but the education system is transformed. ‘Just in time’ education is driven by the needs of consumers at specific times. A modular, ‘mix and match’ approach, with courses drawn from a range of institutions to suit students’ needs, replaces traditional credentialled courses.
- Scenario number four: real globalisation with just in time education: all education is international. Students from around the world ‘mix and match’ courses from around the world.
You all have your own ideas and scenarios for the future. I encourage you to share these with each other over the next two days.
This morning, futurist Andrew Zolli will challenge our thinking on our world 20 years from now – challenge us to think in the future tense!
This afternoon, a panel of international experts will lead a discussion on current and future trends in international education.
I am sure these sessions will stimulate our thinking on possible future scenarios.
We can predict safely that education will play a vital role over the next 20 years as the catalyst for a world of knowledge, understanding, prosperity.
The links that international education establishes between individuals, institutions, economies, governments, cultures and religions should bring our region closer together, building international understanding, trade, prosperity and harmony.
Rapid change in international education means that there is no room for complacency. No room for a “business as usual” approach.
All of us – whether we are business people, university executives, education ministers, teachers, administrators or students – have to be innovative to meet the future successfully.
In 2026, teaching and learning will be different from today. Who studies, what they study, where and how they study, will all have changed. How will we – as education leaders – anticipate and respond to these developments?
Over the next two days, we will all ‘challenge our thinking’ on the future of international education, both at the Forum and at the Ministers’ Meeting. By Wednesday, I am confident that we will all have a better understanding of the important questions and how to answer them.
This Forum will help us to create the environment for an education future that challenges and benefits us all.
Ladies and gentlemen I declare open the International Education Forum for 2006.
The Minister’s media release, ‘Future of International Education’ is available at:
http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/04/b002040406.asp
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