Australia and Japan have poured tens-of-millions of dollars annually into study abroad initiatives but only one of these countries has focussed on producing multilingual citizens.
Hint: it hasn't been Australia.
While language learning has always been one of the reasons to support overseas study experiences for the Australian Government, it has only become a central focus more recently.
For example, since 2014, the main Australian Government program that funds study abroad is the New Colombo Plan (NCP), which encourages undergraduate students to participate in study tours, internships, practicums and research in the Indo-Pacific region. The Government has committed around $50 million annually to the program over the forward estimates.
However, it has only been recently that Asia literacy has become an overt objective of the program.
Japan has similar programs but they are done on a bigger and wider scale. There's the Tomodachi program – a public-private partnership between the US-Japanese governments and multi-national corporations, with a focus on educational and cultural exchanges, and leadership programs.
Then there's the Kakehashi and Tobitate programs, where Australia is one of the major destinations. For the Tobitate program alone, the Japanese Government is investing ¥10 billion (AU$100 million) over five years.
These are important and strategic investments by each country. Broadly, the underlying aims for the programs are of course soft diplomacy: creating people-to-people connections and institutional and national connections that support regional engagement, such as planting the seeds of business or political connections that evolve later in life, perhaps flourishing into trade and commerce or geopolitical ties across borders.
However, for Japan, language learning has always been central to investment in these study abroad programs, with successive Japanese Governments perceiving English as central to international communication.
This is significant when you consider, for example, that Japan is Australia’s second largest trading partner – behind China and ahead of the European Union and the United States. Not only that, they are part of The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – with Australia, the US and India. Therefore, you can see why Japan invests so many resources into ensuring their people are multilingual.
By sending students overseas, Japan has not just established connections abroad, but also increased their student population’s English proficiency. They have an aim of creating a cohort of citizens who are globally competent, who have made connections, and can work internationally across languages.
It is essential Australia can create a cohort of multilingual and interculturally competent people who can effectively communicate our country’s interests too – especially with partners, allies and neighbours such as Japan.
However, Australia has traditionally leant towards what renowned Australian linguist Micheal Clyne named our “monolingual mindset”, believing English to be sufficient – other languages are seen as nice to have, but our collective consciousness seems to undervalue them. We can travel, work, connect overseas, and converse in English – because of its global significance as a language. Linguistically we feel we like don’t have to try or diversify.
In Japan there is no debate about the need to learn other languages, and in most cases this is seen as a need to learn English to engage internationally.
Australia is finally realising it has catching up to do, and is recognising the need to invest in growing capability in other languages – particularly to develop our so-called “Asia literacy”.
This is now reflected in the first objective of the NCP’s 2025 funding round guidelines:
- [an] increased number and diversity of Australian university graduates with Indo-Pacific capability and Asia literacy
This is in contrast to the guidelines for the 2024 funding round, which did not cite Asia literacy as a component of the objectives – our collective mindset is shifting.
In August, Minster for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong addressed the ANU Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership and announced reforms to the NCP beginning in 2025.
The reforms include removing the cap and aiming to double the number of long-term scholarships available, and introducing a stronger focus on language learning. A new language stream will also be created to provide an avenue for students to deepen their language skills through intensive short courses and longer-term immersive programs.
Minister Wong pointed out in her speech that there are around 700,000 Mandarin speakers in Australia, and hundreds-of-thousands of Cantonese speakers. However, the number of those Mandarin-speaking Australians who do not have Chinese origins would be in the low hundreds.
The number of university students studying an Asian language fell 30 per cent in Australia in the decade to 2022.
Indeed, Australia has a long and deep history of multilingualism; multilingual citizenship is necessary to Australia’s ongoing vitality as a nation. Language learning abroad is key to developing that multilingualism and in turn fostering richer connections and ensuring we don't miss out on economic opportunities with our neighbours in the Indo-Pacific.
Research also shows that there are many personal benefits of immersive language learning, such as acquiring a new set of perspectives for creative, critical, or analytical tasks which encourages individuals to engage more boldly with unfamiliar environments and ideas.
The Government is recognising that we are reaching crisis point; that we are missing out on the cultural, linguistic, economic, diplomatic and social opportunities that partners such as Japan glean from a greater focus on language learning.
We are missing out on what we could have, and what we can be as a society.
Minister Wong acknowledges that the NCP reforms won’t solve our nation’s “Asia literacy challenge” on their own – they are just one piece of the puzzle.
However, at least Australia is meeting its partners half-way.
By demonstrating our commitment to understanding and interaction, we also demonstrate a genuine commitment to dialogue.
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