The House Standing Committee on Education released its report, Security and Prosperity in Asia: Building Asia capability in Australia through the education system and beyond, on Monday, arguing that Australia’s ability to engage effectively with Asia is under growing pressure.
Committee chair Tim Watts said Asia capability, which includes language skills, cultural knowledge, in-country experience and professional networks, should be treated as a vital sovereign capability.
The report argues that strengthening Australia’s Asia capability is essential to support an independent foreign policy and maintain the country’s economic links with the region, particularly with India and Southeast Asia.
The committee found that Australia’s education system is producing fewer graduates with expertise in Asian languages and studies despite the country’s increasing strategic and economic engagement with the region.
Its findings include that just 17 students completed Honours in Chinese studies with language at Australian universities during the five years to 2021. Only two Australian universities currently offer Hindi courses, while domestic enrolments in Southeast Asian language courses have fallen by 75 per cent over the past two decades.
The report also notes that fewer than 500 of Australia’s one million domestic university students now study Indonesian, a figure lower than when Robert Menzies was Prime Minister. Witnesses told the committee that Indonesian teaching in Australian schools is on track to become “functionally extinct” by 2031.
The committee said Australia has benefited from Asia experts trained through investments made decades ago, but warned the pipeline producing future specialists is weakening.
“The Albanese Government is leading the most active period of Australian statecraft in Asia in our nation’s history, supported by some of the world’s best Asia experts. But these experts are the products of investments in our education system made a generation ago. The pipeline needed to produce their successors is under significant pressure. The institutions that build Australia’s Asia capability are facing substantial challenges.”
The report states that stronger engagement with Asia remains important for Australian jobs and businesses, particularly as trade with India and Southeast Asia continues to grow.
To address the decline, the committee has recommended a ten-year National Asia Capability Strategy to coordinate education policy, alongside a network of Asia Leader Schools to combine classroom learning with overseas immersion opportunities.
Other recommendations include creating an Australian Schools in Asia Consortium to reduce the cost and complexity of student immersion programs and establishing an Asia Capability Compact through the Australian Tertiary Education Commission to guarantee long-term support for priority Asian languages and area studies.
The committee said Australia already possesses the expertise needed to engage effectively with the region but warned future capability would depend on sustained investment.
“Australia has the people and the knowledge to make its own way in Asia today. The question is whether the nation chooses to invest in the Australian experts we will need to come after them.”
It added: “Unless we choose to make building Australia’s sovereign Asia capability a priority today, we’re choosing to leave our security and economic prosperity in the region to be determined by others in the future.”
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