On 22 September, the House Standing Committee on Education prompted by Commonwealth Education Minister Jason Clare launched an inquiry into how Australia’s education system can be reformed to support building Asia capability. This inquiry is an opportunity to prompt a national debate about how we prepare Australians to engage with arguably the world’s most dynamic region and our northern neighbourhood.
The Reality
Asia is central to Australia’s future. In 2023-24, over 80% of our export’s worth approximately A$1,233.6 billion went to Asia (including the Middle East), largely in commodities.
Despite our success in commodities, to seize future opportunities such as a booming digital economy in Southeast Asia that is projected to be valued at over US$1 trillion by 2030, Australians must be able to navigate nuanced regional dynamics.
Asia’s importance goes beyond economics. It impacts Australia’s future in multiple ways, from geopolitical tensions, especially between the United States and China in the Taiwan Straits to deep pop-culture influences from K-pop to Bollywood.
To engage effectively within our region, we need university graduates with cultural fluency, contextual knowledge, geopolitical awareness, and personal connections.
Instead, our education system is disengaging with Asian languages, history, and politics. In Victoria, only 335 students studied VCE Indonesian in 2023, which is just 0.5% of VCE candidates, down from over 1,000 in 2002. Simultaneously, there have been the closure of Asian language programs across Australian universities over the last decade.
This educational anaemia, although depressing, presents a unique opportunity. By embedding Asia-literacy into legal education, and other university education programs, we can globalise our curriculum and energise academic inquiry.
A Practical Response
Rather than waiting for top-down reform, I initiated programs to address this gap directly. The Swinburne Law School (SLS) Indonesia Law, Governance and Culture Program (2017–2022) was designed to create experiential learning opportunities that immersed students in Indonesia’s legal and political systems. Since 2023, this initiative evolved into the Transnational Lawyering Consortium, a partnership between Deakin Law School and Western Sydney University.
These programs have offered short- and long-term mobility opportunities, equipping future lawyers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs with the skills to operate in a globalised legal environment.
Indonesia was a deliberate choice: it’s projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2050, is the third-largest democracy, and the largest Muslim-majority country. For the students, its legal system and cultures offers a rich entry point into understanding regional governance, history, and politics.
Indonesian also provides an accessible language for Australians as it is written using a Latin alphabet like English. If we’re serious about regional engagement, language programs must be part of the equation.
Importantly, as this is an educational program, being an expert in Indonesian law and society allowed me to guide students into these experiential and classroom learning processes with the necessary depth and breadth of knowledge.
Students have participated in study tours, semester exchanges, internships, and intensive language training. Despite COVID-19 disruptions, 105 SLS students joined study tours over five years, with 16 undertaking long-term programs.
The Consortium has since attracted over 70 participants to its study tours, with seven law students opting for extended in-country experiences over the past year.
Legal Education for a Globalised World
Legal education must evolve to meet the demands of a globalised profession. Almost no law school leaders would doubt this imperative. The challenge is how to engage with these learning objectives meaningfully.
The SLS and consortium programs provided students with theoretical knowledge alongside immersive, cross-cultural experiences that build global awareness and professional context. Understanding diverse legal systems and their socio-political environments demands sustained engagement, not token international exposure.
This is not purely about Indonesia, or even Asia, it’s about preparing students to navigate a world where legal, economic, cultural and political boundaries are increasingly porous.
Thinking Big: A Centre of Excellence
To grab hold of this opportunity, we need to be creative. We need to dare to dream large. Consequently, I propose the creation of a Centre of Excellence for Indonesian Law and Society. Building on the SLS program and the consortium’s work, this Centre would serve as a scalable model for transforming legal education and research embedding Asia-literacy into the academic heart of 10-12 Australian law schools.
The Centre would foster research programs (covering an array of topics from disruptive technologies to local governance structures) aimed at training the next generation of researchers and supporting curriculum development (with on-campus subjects and a comprehensive student mobility program for hundreds of students annually) all anchored in the rich legal cultures of Indonesia.
This is more than an academic project. It’s a strategic investment in Australia’s future. The only real question is: do we have the courage to make real change?
Dr Jeremy J. Kingsley is Associate Professor and Associate Dean (International) at Western Sydney University’s School of Law, specialising in transnational law and legal anthropology. His research has been widely published, including his recent book Religious Authority and Local Governance in Eastern Indonesia (Melbourne University Press). He is a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project on contract enforcement in Indonesia and leads the Transnational Lawyering Consortium, a student mobility initiative with Deakin Law School. Jeremy also serves as a founding editor of the Asia Law and Society Series and is currently engaged in the international research partnership, the Inter-Asian Legalities Consortium.
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