Saturday, November 22, 2008, 09.42 PM
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Saturday, November 22, 2008, 09.42 PM |
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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could only shake his head in bemusement, the Thursday he was flying out for the opening of the Beijing Olympics.
Accomplished Mandarin speaker that he is, Rudd would not be drawn to respond to the "ni hao" parting wishes of the breakfast TV presenter.
"Uggh?" nonplussed Rudd left unsaid, grinning, embarrassed for the presenter's faux pas. "Thank you," he signed off.
Which goes to show that whatever the positives and negatives of differences between peoples, they do leave lasting impressions. And if for no other reason, there is virtue in cultivating relationships between peoples, fingers crossed that the positives might prevail over the negatives.
Education builds bridges to that objective. The ties that bind Malaysia and Australia are prime examples, most evident over the past half a century. You wouldn't think so, reading the investigation in The Age over the past weeks. But you would be encouraged by events in Malaysia over this coming fortnight.
"Expert warns of campus 'ghettos'", the banner headline proclaimed in The Age (http:// tinyurl.com/6hwrh3).
The front page lead article reports that a "widening gulf" between international students and their Australian course mates has triggered warnings of resentment and a backlash in university campuses, as overseas student numbers continue to grow.
Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne, is reported to warn that despite the atmosphere on campuses generally supporting international students, there is "informal but real segregation" that could fuel tensions.
The report raised a torrent of letters to the editor. Including from Marginson. He's "deeply disturbed" by the report, as the sole expert cited, he notes.
"In briefing The Age, I said that there was no visible tension between international and local students, but the two populations are largely separated and there is potential for backlash and resentment down the track if we don't draw local students into internationalisation," he wrote.
"Yet the headline describes 'ghettos' and 'resentment' as if these are established facts.
"In some editions of the paper ... the article more accurately reports me ... as saying that there is no problem, just a potential problem!"
In Kuala Lumpur, Adam Carlon, counsellor (education) at the Australian High Commission, would not have been amused. The good thing is, the furore in Melbourne passed unnoticed in Malaysia.
Carlon tells the New Sunday Times that any perceived problems of -- and between -- overseas students and host communities in Australia have not been raised as an issue in Malaysia.
"The benefits of studying in Australia -- such as the quality of the education experience, the challenge of living and learning in a foreign country and the personal growth and development in adapting to challenging circumstances -- far outweigh the perceived issues identified by recent media coverage," he said.
In any case, Carlon is too excited over the impending arrival over the coming fortnight of the "baby" he has been "carrying" over the past months.
High Commissioner Penny Williams on Tuesday launches Endeavours of Excellence, a coffee-table book that chronicles all that's positive of the education experience between Australia and Malaysia from the first days of the Colombo Plan 57 years ago.
The pioneering plan was to blaze the trail for the 250,000 Malaysians who have studied in Australia, and for the 20,000 who continue to do so every year.
Colombo Plan scholars (of which there have been more than 4,000 on Australian government scholarships), other students on Malaysian government scholarships, and still others on their own steam, span generations across Malaysia.
In recognition, Williams launches Endeavours of Excellence in Kota Kinabalu on Wednesday, in Penang on Saturday, and in Kuching on Aug 23. The book pays tribute to education. It traces the history of the Colombo Plan and those who studied in Australia.
Importantly, it presages a new pioneering age, in an Australian government-funded programme that includes a "reverse Colombo Plan" for Australians to study in Malaysia.
The Endeavour Awards programme, started in 2006, complements the initiative of Malaysian Colombo Plan scholars who have long felt obligated to "give back". In the 1990s, they started the scholarship programme for Australian students.
As Education Minister Julia Gillard says in the foreword to Endeavours of Excellence, "international education enriches students by enabling them to experience a new culture, develop understanding of a new community and make lifelong friendships that transcend national borders".
James Unsworth exemplifies Gillard's portrayal. Unsworth received one of the first scholarships under the Endeavour programme, to read his master's in human sciences (political science) at the International Islamic Universiti Malaysia.
There are many similarities between tertiary institutions in Australia and Malaysia, he notes in Endeavours of Excellence. But it is in the differences that people create true learning.
"While at IIUM, I dressed differently," Queenslander Unsworth writes beneath a photograph of himself in a baju melayu. "I spoke differently. I ate differently. I sat differently. I studied differently... But, most importantly, I began to think differently."
Today, having left IIUM, Unsworth continues to enrich Malaysian-Australian ties, and promote greater understanding of the two national cultures. He teaches at the Australian International School in Kuala Lumpur.
Melburnian John Kingston would be encouraged. Kingston had written a letter to the editor in The Age, expressing incredulity at reactions regarding China, the Internet and foreign journalists and the naivety of the International Olympic Committee.
"China is China; always has been and always will be. Other countries have looked at us and our values, and have decided to follow different paths. Our increasing awareness of other places and other countries does not seem to have brought a greater awareness of diversity, but of differences to be eroded.
"In all this, I am not wishing to sink back into formless relativism; there are areas in which China should be challenged. For the moment, though, in the matter of journalists and the Internet (for the two or three weeks of the games): when in Rome, put up with the traffic or don't drive there."
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