Education delegates travel to India on peace mission
A delegation of nine Australia delegates, headed by Colin Walters, a senior official with the Australian Department of Education, have begun a tour of India to salvage Australia’s damaged reputation following attacks on Indian students.
The tour will introduce new measures to ensure prospective Indian students are well-informed about what to expect in Australia through regulated marketing, and provide an overview of the new Council of Australian Governments’ International Student Strategy involving pre-arrival orientations and improved multicultural education in Australian schools.
The delegation will also announce new safety initiatives to reassure students’ families that Australia is a safe place to study.
President of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia Amit Menghani was critical of the delegation: “They’re investing a lot of money sending this delegation to India to convince them that everything is okay, but there’s no point in doing this. They should instead give a concrete agenda on what they’re doing to eliminate these attacks.”
Education is Australia’s third largest export, and top service export, generating more than $15 billion per annum.
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That’s alright then? A physical promotional roadshow is going to solve security issues for Indian students and they will continue to be attracted to Australia?
Deeper issue regarding Australian international education industry is that here we have an elite educated group of Australians intending to physically meet every prospective student or stakeholder? Is this roadshow approach a very good promotion of Australian education, skills learnt and limited promotional resources? No.
How about something unique and innovative in Australian education marketing i.e. first stay onshore, gain feedback from existing candidates who have Australian experience (in this case Indian), act upon concerns and suggestions, have selected group give feedback (in local dialects) with Australian educators to video (.wmv or mp4 format), then using internet post to YouTube, Study in Australia and related websites, blogs etc. (suggest to institutions to have on theirs also), then inform media, agents and education entities in India.
This would mimick how the market was assisted greatly (in Victoria) by Indians producing a Bollywood film in Melbourne five years ago.
Surely this is not rocket science…..but then again no one from Australia would get to rort travel opportunities…..