The CPD Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.
In recent years Australia has made great strides in its public diplomacy and has demonstrated a remarkable ability to ‘punch above its weight,’ especially in the realm of international education. As the US international student recruitment became bogged down in visa bureaucracy and post-9/11 paranoia, Australia surged ahead to take up the slack and recruited large numbers of students from Asia especially. Now this recruitment and Australia’s wider reputation are in jeopardy as a result of a series of brutal racist attacks on Indian students by youths.
The attacks have not only opened questions over the safety of the nearly 100,000 Indian students studying in Australia, but they have also raised wider concerns about the quality of the education provided to Indian students. Indian blogs and newspapers are speaking about ‘exploitation’ of their students. The Australian government – doubtless concerned to protect their third largest export industry – has responded by pledging an annual conference on the welfare of Indian students in Australia.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sought to mend wounds. He recently assured India of his country’s love of the sub-continent, joking that if it wasn’t for India, Australians would be stuck eating English food. The crisis has implications for practitioners and scholars of public diplomacy. For scholars, it promises to be a fascinating example of public diplomacy crisis management. For practitioners outside Australia, it is an opportunity to remind Indian students of alternative choices for their education.
Adam Clayton Powell III on September 17, 2009 @ 8:14 am This has huge economy impact there:
Australian university leaders are quite candid, even proud, that they rely on revenue from non-Australian students to fund their operations. Indeed, revenue from international students was listed by the government as the country's second largest source of "export" revenue, tied with mining.
Mark Rolfe on September 19, 2009 @ 11:35 pm The crisis had been building over a number of years with attacks on students that gained little notice from authorities. They were complacent and the tertiary education sector was a 'nice little earner'. It was only when the situation became an international crisis that a response was cobbled together with ad hoc arrangements between the federal government, state governments (which run the police), universities and organisations representing private education.
Such public-private partnerships will need to become permanent in order to forestall more problems becoming catalysts for international controversy that may damage the industry. This is a lesson for public diplomacy in other education-export countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand and Canada.
Furthermore, the crisis will be a problem for Australian authorities for many years to come because the accusations of racism reinforce certain beliefs about Australia.
The 2007 Senate report into public diplomacy was bewildered by surveys that showed many Asians still believe the White Australia policy is extant, although it was dismantled in 1967 and we have a multicultural country with every nation represented.
However, a number of incidents over the last 10 years have given people overseas plausible reasons for thinking that way, including the infamous Pauline Hanson (google her if you don't know!), boat people, and the Cronulla riots of 2005. (I say 'plausible' to account for their reasoning while not necessarily agreeing with it. In public diplomacy, one must take seriously the beliefs of an intended audience).
Thus, Australia will be living down the student crisis in the same way that Denmark will live down the cartoon controversy in the future. In other words, international incidents may reinforce stereotypes about a country.
And, yes Adam, I sometimes wonder if the utilitarian statements about this Australian 'export' industry are a bit too candid for overseas tastes, particularly in the United States! There are other objectives to higher education but they sometimes seem to come a distant fourth in the export enthusiasm!
