International Mobility for Undergraduate Students: Lessons From Australia’s New Colombo Plan

Australia is a leader in international education, and has recently adopted a national scholarship and mobility grants program aimed at increasing the number of its own students studying in Indo-Pacific countries. The New Colombo Plan intends to enhance Australian undergraduates’ knowledge of the Indo-Pacific, a strategic and historically important region, and deepen their interpersonal and inter-institutional connections there.

This briefing looks at the design of the New Colombo Plan and its immediate outcomes, and offers eight lessons that Canadian post-secondary institutions and policy-makers can apply to education-abroad initiatives for Canadian students.