T
welve Victorian secondary school students have been selected to travel to Vietnam after winning the 2026 Premier’s Spirit of Anzac Prize, an annual competition that recognises outstanding research and reflection on Australia’s military history.
The fully funded overseas study tour is open to students in Years 9 to 12 and aims to deepen their understanding of Australia’s service and sacrifice during the Vietnam War.
The students will travel to Vietnam at the end of September, visiting historical sites in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, as well as the villages of Hoa Long and Nui Dat, which are closely linked to Australia’s military involvement in the conflict.
The program has been running since 2005 and has awarded the prize to more than 500 Victorian students. The Victorian Government committed $800,000 over four years to support the initiative as part of its 2023-24 budget.
Among this year’s recipients is Bilyana Holloway from Loreto College in Ballarat, whose entry reflected on her experiences as a young First Nations woman and her commitment to reconciliation. Her research also explored her family’s history of military service, including a relative who was a prisoner of war during the First World War.
Taihan Rahman from Melbourne High School, an Air Force cadet, examined how Anzac values continue to connect people across generations, nations and cultures.
Willow Hook-Nicol, a Year 9 student from Salesian College Sunbury, drew on her family’s military background, interviewing her grandparents to better understand the impact of conflict on veterans and their families after they returned home.
Education programs linked to military history have long been used to encourage students to engage with historical sources, personal accounts and the broader consequences of war. Supporters argue that overseas study tours provide a deeper appreciation of historical events, while critics of war commemoration programs have at times questioned how military history is presented to younger Australians and the balance between remembrance and critical historical analysis.
Victorian Minister for Veterans Natalie Suleyman said the prize offered students an opportunity to expand their understanding of Australia’s war and peacekeeping history.
She said visiting Vietnam would give participants a deeper appreciation of the realities of war and of the mateship associated with the Anzac tradition and the experiences of Australians who served in Vietnam.
The competition forms part of the state’s broader veterans and commemorative education initiatives, with participants expected to share their experiences with their schools and communities after returning from the tour.
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