Canberra Plan 2029: Blended Learning for the Indo-Pacific

This is to propose that over the next ten years Australia develop accessible, low cost post-secondary education for the Indo-Pacific region, using blended techniques. Students would study online using their mobile device at home and then come to Australia for more advanced classes. This would complement, rather than compete with, China's Belt and Road Education Plan (China Ministry of Education, 2016).

I am scheduled to speak at the National IT Conference in Sri Lanka (NITC 2018), in Colombo 2 to 4 October 2018, organized by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) and at EduTech Asia 2018 in Singapore 8 to 11 October 2018. So need something to talk about. So I thought I would develop ideas I explored in previous conferences.

Chinese universities are forming join ventures with institutions in the region and providing scholarships for citizens of the region to study in China (Australian Department of Education. (2017). However, these are based on the use of conventional campus based education. Australia could complement these initiatives using new forms of blended learning, which merge campus with online learning (Worthington & Wu, 2015). This would allow students of the region to work together online (Worthington, 2014).

References

Australian Department of Education. (2017, 27 November). China's Belt and Road Initiative - Education, Department of Education, Australian Government. URL https://internationaleducation.gov.au/International-network/china/PolicyUpdates-China/Pages/Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-.aspx

China Ministry of Education. (2016, July). Education Action Plan for the Belt and Road Initiative, Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China. URL https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/zchj/qwfb/30277.htm

Worthington, T. (2014, August). Chinese and Australian students learning to work together online proposal to expand the New Colombo Plan to the online environment. In Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 2014 9th International Conference on (pp. 164-168). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2014.6926448

Worthington, T., & Wu, H. (2015, July). Time-shifted learning: Merging synchronous and asynchronous techniques for e-learning. In Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 2015 10th International Conference on (pp. 434-437). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2015.7250285