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Editor’s note: this essay is an edited excerpt of the author’s chapter in a new volume from ANU Press, Experiencing Indonesia: 30 years of ACICIS, which contains reflections on the origins and achievements of the Australian Consortium for “In-Country” Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) since its establishment in 1994.
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When ACICIS sent its first outbound cohort of students to Indonesia in 1995, it was a time of considerable national debate on Australia’s “Asia literacy”. By that point more than 15 reports, policy documents and statements that addressed Asia literacy had been authored by a “who’s who” of Australian politics and academia. As future prime minister Kevin Rudd reflected the year after the publication of his 1994 report, Asian Languages and Australia’s economic future:
… over the last 25 years the preparation of reports on this particular issue has almost generated its own industry with a new report appearing every 18 months on average and with each report invariably producing the same sorts of recommendations as its predecessors. In short, this subject has been reported to death.
The term “Asia literacy” was used for the first time in a 1988 address for an Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) conference by Stephen FitzGerald, a former Australian ambassador to China and then chair of the Asian Studies Council, a federal government advisory body. FitzGerald named an ambition that had been referred to in numerous, preceding official reports—one that had expanded from increasing Asian languages and Asian cultures education in Australian schools and universities, as articulated in the 1971 Auchmuty Report commissioned by then federal education minister Malcolm Fraser, to this knowledge becoming widespread and commonplace across the populace, a goal articulated by FitzGerald’s own 1980 report for the ASAA, Asia in Australian Education.
The rationale for Asia literacy, however, remained constant in terms of meeting Australia’s national interest, with a focus on economic, strategic and political considerations. These early documents also hint at a tension between what the 1980 FitzGerald report calls “intellectual” and “utilitarian” purposes, as well as friction between advocates of languages education in general and of Asian languages in particular.
FitzGerald’s coinage of “Asia literacy” in 1988 coincided with the release of multiple official reports that focused on language policy and education reform in Australia as well as more specific calls for Asia literacy. The Rudd Report, commissioned in 1992 by the Council of Australian Governments, was published in 1994 and spearheaded by future prime minister Kevin Rudd, a graduate of ANU’s Asian Studies program. It addressed Asia literacy in Australia in the context of the Keating government’s broader push for economic and political integration with Asia. Notably, “Asia-literate” was defined in the Rudd Report as:
… the range of linguistic and cultural competencies required by Australians to operate effectively at different levels in their various dealings with the region — as individuals, organisations and as a nation.
The Rudd Report was viewed as a watershed, however, in terms of its implementation from mid-1995 as the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) program, backed by unprecedented federal funding, with annual Commonwealth expenditure peaking at A$30 million per annum, or A$49 million in 2022 dollars. Through its policy prescriptions, NALSAS funded Asian languages and Asian studies education in Australian secondary and primary schools, including Bahasa Indonesia and Indonesian studies. Some of these students would choose to further their studies of Indonesia at university, creating a pool of prospective participants for ACICIS programs.
After the establishment of NALSAS and ACICIS in 1995 and NALSAS’ demise in 2002, the potential economic dividends of Asia literacy became even more explicit in the 2000s. The concept of “regional literacy” that framed the Rudd and Gillard governments’ policy interventions—while defined in terms of language skills, cultural awareness and education—was part of a dialogue focused on security and prosperity and thus posited as a contribution to Australia’s defence and commerce systems.
From July 2008 to June 2012, the Labor government’s primary vehicle for Asia literacy was the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP), which received A$62.4 million in federal funding to “increase opportunities for school students to become familiar with the languages and cultures of Australia’s key regional neighbours, namely China, Indonesia, Japan and Korea”. NALSSP framed Asia literacy in terms of “equip[ping] the students of today with the skills to excel in the careers of tomorrow in our increasingly globalised economy”.
The almost exclusive economic focus of the Rudd–Gillard era “regional literacy” agenda presents a different tone from Stephen FitzGerald’s speech of 20 years earlier. Asia literacy had come to denote a clear economic dividend for the entire nation; FitzGerald’s intellectual basis for Asia literacy was no longer articulated, yet schools and other educational institutions are clearly identified as the places in which Asia literacy is to be acquired.
Indonesia’s place within Australia’s Asia literacy
ACICIS has unfolded within an Indonesia literacy agenda that both reflects and challenges the trends and problems within Australia’s broader Asia literacy described above.
Indonesia literacy in Australia can be viewed as a series of paradoxes. Despite its introduction into Australian schools at a time of declining participation in languages education, Bahasa Indonesia became one of the most popular languages taught in Australian schools in the 1990s. From 2000 to 2009, however, the Asia Education Foundation identified a “significant and ongoing decline in Indonesian”, with student participation in Indonesian language and studies education in Australia at this time characterised with the language of “crisis”.
The particular vulnerability of Indonesian has been closely related to the small size of the Indonesian diaspora in Australia. Even by the mid-1990s, Bahasa Indonesia—unlike other Asian languages—did not have a large “background speaker” profile in Australia and was not used widely in Australian homes. In 1996, around the time of ACICIS’ inception, the Census reported 27,201 Australian citizens and non-citizens using Bahasa Indonesia at home in Australia (0.15% of the population); this figure grew to 55,869 (0.26% of the population) in the 2011 Census.
It is also important to note that it has been geopolitics, rather than economics, that has fuelled Australia’s Indonesia literacy. Indonesian language and Indonesian studies education in Australia have been a project of learning about “our neighbour”. Unlike China, Japan and Korea, Indonesia has not been a major trade or investment partner for Australia, although this is now being addressed through the Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA–CEPA), which came into force in 2020.
These factors have helped ensure that the introduction of Bahasa Indonesia as a subject within Australia’s education systems did not stem from public demand or from the scholarly community, but from the Australian federal government. Bahasa Indonesia was introduced into Australian primary and secondary schools in the 1950s, a time when French, German and Latin dominated language programs.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, enrolments in languages education declined dramatically in Australian schools. This has been attributed to the abolition of foreign language requirements for entry into Australian universities. It was at this time and in this context that Indonesian and Malaysian were introduced into secondary schools and that student enrolments in these languages began to increase.
Enrolments in Bahasa Indonesia in Australian primary and high schools grew exponentially over the next 10 years. After the establishment of both ACICIS and NALSAS by 2001, there were over 211,000 enrolments in Indonesian in government primary and secondary schools in Australia and Bahasa Indonesia was the second most studied language in these schools after Japanese.
Writing in 2009, Joseph Lo Bianco and Yvette Slaughter showed that the pattern of enrolments in Indonesian language education across Australian schools mirrored that of other languages. Languages education in Australia is concentrated in primary schools and early secondary schooling years. It declines over secondary school levels; as student year levels advance participation rates decline, with Year 12 its lowest level. Indonesian language education is concentrated in Australian primary schools, with primary school students accounting for more than 60% of all enrolments in Indonesian in 2010.
Kohler and Mahnken have argued that at this time “data provided by education authorities shows that 99% of Australian students studying Indonesian discontinued their study before completing Year 12”, with attrition levels most severe at the junior secondary school level during transition from primary school, where Indonesian is taught more widely.
The majority of Indonesian language education in Australian schools is thus focused at year levels in which languages education programs are most likely to be characterised by low time allocation. This experience is unlikely to contribute to the development of useful levels of Bahasa Indonesia proficiency for Australian students.
Post-2000 slumps in school-level participation rates, however, were to spark descriptions of Bahasa Indonesia as reaching a “crisis point”, with the Asia Education Foundation warning that Indonesian could become “virtually extinct in language studies at Year 12 level”. In 2009, 1,167 students in Year 12 were enrolled nationally in tertiary-accredited Bahasa Indonesia subjects in Australian schools and in 2022, data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority shows this has steadily declined to 619 Year 12 students. The 2026 parliamentary inquiry into “Building Asia Capability in Australia” cites 486 Year 12 students studying Bahasa Indonesia in 2024.
This attrition feeds into chronic challenges sustaining Indonesian language education at universities. Enrolment data from the 1960s and 1970s shows that tertiary enrolments in Bahasa Indonesia were higher than other Asian languages, notably Chinese and Japanese. In 1964 there were 561 enrolments in Indonesian and Malaysian languages across four universities in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney and 676 enrolments by 1973; David Hill has noted that by 1991, Indonesian was available at university level in each state and territory of Australia. This provided momentum—and a pipeline of students—for the inception of ACICIS in 1994, when tertiary enrolments in Indonesian language students in Australia were at their peak.
This was, however, a time of significant expansion in tertiary enrolments in Australia, and growth of absolute student numbers would likely have equated to a decline as a percentage of all university enrolments. While enrolments grew strongly in the early 1990s, they had begun to contract by the end of the decade and have continued to decline. In 2001, there were 1,686 students studying Bahasa Indonesia in Australian universities; declining to 1,067 students in 2010; and in 2022, there were only around 564 Australian students enrolled in all Southeast Asian languages at Australian universities. Information about the availability of, or student enrolments in, “Indonesian studies” courses or subjects in both tertiary and secondary studies in Australia, meanwhile, is simply not available.
The assumptions of the Asia literacy agenda
From these discussions of Asia literacy that span more than 40 years, four key points emerge that are important for understanding ACICIS’ establishment and its conceptualisation of Indonesia literacy.
First, since the Auchmuty Report of 1971, Asia literacy has encompassed two dimensions: Asian languages and Asian studies. At various times, particular Asian languages have received priority. For example, the Rudd Report and NALSAS program prioritised Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian and Korean, with these four languages also being the focus of NALSSP. Bahasa Indonesia has always featured as a priority language across the body of official reports produced in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The focus on Asian languages education within Asia literacy can also be seen as a response to the setting of explicit participation targets for Asian languages education, while no participation targets were set for Asian studies education. Anthony Liddicoat has found that between 1987 and 2007, no language policy in Australia, at federal or at state or territory level, achieved its stated targets, including for participation in Asian languages. This was still true in 2025.
Second, Asia literacy is a uniquely Australian term and policy initiative. Asia literacy has aimed to promote the study of Asia within Australia (and for the most part, not outside Australia) by Australians and not by others. Agency is threefold here: Asia literacy is to be learned by Australian students, taught by Australian educators and promoted by Australian governments.
It is important to note the absence of the involvement of foreign, “Asian” governments in the formulation of Asia literacy initiatives in Australia at the time that ACICIS was established; of educators from Asia in the teaching of Asian languages and Asian studies to Australian students; and of students who may already be Asia literate. These issues of agency are key to the ways in which Asia literacy has been framed in Australia. In particular, the potential for latent Asia literacy within Australia’s population is deserving of greater attention from policymakers and educators.
Third, the two dimensions of Asia literacy—Asian languages and Asian studies—have always been defined aspirationally. Stephen FitzGerald, for example, encouraged Australia, as a nation, to become “Asia-literate”; participants of the Australia 2020 Summit called for “a concerted campaign to develop regional literacy in Australia”; and NALSSP proffered that “Asian languages and studies will equip the students of today with the skills to excel in the careers of tomorrow”. Asia literacy is a desired future state for Australian students and graduates; which, even after 50 years of policy effort and advocacy, is still very much a work-in-progress. Furthermore, Asia literacy has not been positioned as a specialised area of study for select students, or a stream of expertise, but targets all Australian students as a mass-based mission.
Finally, a strong connection has been made between Asia literacy and Australia’s economic and commercial systems as well as Australian security and defence. The case for the economic benefits of Asia literacy was repeatedly made from 1971 through to the early 2000s. It is evident in the title of the Rudd Report—Asian languages and Australia’s economic future—and explicit in the Australian Government’s approach to Asia literacy through NALSSP, which emphasised the building of a “more productive and competitive nation” and “creating more jobs and higher wages” (cited in Hughes, 2014, pp 38–39). These instrumental concerns are also illustrated well by the title of a recent high-profile report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education, Security and Prosperity in Asia: Building Australia’s Asia Capability. Although Asia’s economic potential has developed exponentially since the publication of the Auchmuty Report, Asia literacy appears to still be articulated as a one-way process: of Australians learning about “Asia” to fulfil Australian national interests.
These four points demonstrate problems with the rationale, objectives and agency within Asia literacy in the 1970, 1980s and 1990s and through to more recent times, revealing deeper problems about how Australians view “Asia” and Australia’s position in the region—as well as the ways in which Australian governments have sought to control the nature of this engagement. The rationale for Asia literacy has been increasingly linked to economic dividends: for Australian individuals and the Australian nation.
This overlooks the fundamental importance of context and of place for languages and cultural studies education. Context is not simply a question of classrooms and resources or of which Asian societies and languages to prioritise. Rather, context is created in languages and cultural studies education through the value assigned to those languages and cultures, the people who embody them and the places from which they originate. Value cannot be “constructed” in a language independent of its speech communities, such as in language class or cultural studies class delivered in an Australian school or university. Rather, “Asia”, “Asians” and the broader Australian community have important, active roles to play within Asia literacy in Australia and must be enabled to do so.
ACICIS and Asia literacy
Understanding this broader context helps to highlight just how unique the conceptualisation of ACICIS was in Australia in the early 1990s. From its beginnings, ACICIS created a new space for Indonesia literacy in Australia. While the majority of ACICIS participants are university students, reflecting the “place” of Asia literacy within formal education systems, ACICIS programs are delivered in Indonesia. This seemingly simple feature sets ACICIS apart from other Asia literacy and Indonesia literacy initiatives in the 1990s, which were primarily based in classrooms and institutions in Australia. While ACICIS’ in-country delivery has, at times, limited the scope of its operations and exposed ACICIS to geopolitical risks, it has also enabled ACICIS to deliver a different type of Indonesia literacy in several important ways.
While formal study in an Indonesian host university is an important part of ACICIS programs (and—from a practical perspective—a key enabler for a student visa), ACICIS has always advocated for “non classroom”, informal learning experiences. For example, most ACICIS programs do not offer prearranged residential accommodation. Instead, ACICIS orientation programs have equipped participants with resources to secure accommodation for themselves, usually a room in a kos (boarding house). ACICIS programs have, from their inception, encouraged Australian participants to live with and among Indonesian students and communities, creating a role for Indonesian agency with ACICIS’ brand of Indonesia literacy. Although ACICIS programs usually include some type of formal institution-based study delivered by Indonesian lecturers and tutors, ACICIS programs also emphasise the important role of Indonesian students, kos mates, internship colleagues and other peers in the learning experiences of ACICIS participants.
In this way, Australian ACICIS participants do not just learn the specific subject-content of their program; they also learn about Indonesian societies and cultures, and importantly youth societies and youth cultures, which are often absent from Bahasa Indonesia and Indonesian studies education programs in Australia. ACICIS programs create space for and encourage the development of enduring, meaningful people-to-people connections and friendships, that extend beyond the duration of an ACICIS program. ACICIS can thus be seen to reconfigure agency, create context and open new spaces for Australia’s Indonesia literacy.
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It is this innovation and inclusivity that has likely ensured ACICIS’ longevity over the last 30 years whereas other, government-led Asia literacy initiatives, such as NALSAS and NALSSP, have been comparatively short-lived.
