ALTC Awards for Programs that Enhance Learning

ACICIS Team:
David Hill
David Reeve
Phil King
David Armstrong

Category
Educational partnerships and collaborations with other organisations

Synopsis
The Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) is an innovative national educational partnership involving collaboration between 21 member universities in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands, working with a broad range of partner universities in Indonesia. Via ACICIS students from any member university may enhance their educational experience through in-country studies in Indonesia. Options extend well beyond simply studying Indonesian language, and include unique programs in Islamic business, Arts, a Journalism Professional Practicum, a supervised Field Study semester, together with regular courses taught in Indonesian across all disciplines at our partner universities.

A non-profit consortium, ACICIS has the very clear and specific objective of maximising opportunities for Australian students to undertake quality semester-long, in-country study at Indonesian universities, credited to their home university degree. ACICIS provides an academically rigorous, organisationally streamlined, and pedagogically sound mechanism for the coordination, implementation and reflexive evaluation of such in-country study.

Instead of individual universities expending considerable (scarce) staff time and resources in an effort to manage Indonesia placements for their own students, through ACICIS these universities collaborate in offering a well-supported common conduit for their students to study in Indonesia. ACICIS employs a dedicated Australian academic as Resident Director in Indonesia to provide pastoral, academic and administrative support for students. The quality of ACICIS study programs is a powerful endorsement of the benefit of collaboration above competition. By working together, drawing upon Indonesianist skills in universities across the country collectively, ACICIS provides the best possible experience for students from around Australia, irrespective of their home university.

The Consortium was established to overcome the substantial linguistic, academic, bureaucratic, and immigration impediments that had prevented Australian students from undertaking credited semester study in Indonesian universities. Prior to ACICIS, virtually no Australian student had ever undertaken such study.

With the support and collaboration of organisations such as the Myer Foundation, Australia-Indonesia Institute, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies, and a variety of Indonesian community organisations, ACICIS has now facilitated more than 1100 student-semesters in Indonesian universities with participants from more than 30 universities since 1995. Anonymous end-of-semester surveys of student satisfaction are routinely in the high 90s with some semesters achieving 100% satisfaction levels. Endorsements by hundreds of past students attest to the life-changing impact of the ACICIS experience in enhancing student learning, building new cross-institutional social networks, and fostering intercultural understandings, while optimising career trajectories.

Category
Innovations in curricula, learning and teaching

Synopsis
UniFocus is a cutting edge, alternative entry program designed to address the unique social, economic and educational needs of people living in the South West corridor of Western Australia. The program encapsulates a strong commitment to students, a deep understanding of pedagogy, an ethic of care and respect, and innovation in program design.

UniFocus has a powerful impact on its students. At first, students enter the program with reservations about their own abilities to succeed. For these students and their families schooling has not always been a positive experience. This is borne out by the persistent and entrenched low rate of participation and retention in both secondary and tertiary education in the Rockingham region. People living in this catchment area have historically experienced educational disadvantage. For members of this community, their 'disadvantage' in relation to participation in university education is linked to their membership of that community.

Many alternative entry and equity bridging courses are designed using a discourse which locates the 'need' in individuals and not in the wider social context (Pearce & Moore 2002). Under this model, applicants need to demonstrate that due to a specific, individual disadvantage, they are unable to gain entry to university. The designers of UniFocus feel however that these individuals have a social disadvantage and it is for this reason that their life chances are limited. It is only in the lack of preparedness to participate in tertiary education that the community as a whole can be said to be 'disadvantaged' (Pearce & Moore 2002).

In tackling these complex socio-cultural problems, the UniFocus program has effectively drawn together leading edge theory and practice to enhance learning. Learning begins from 'where the students are at' and moves forward from there. Informing this 'standpoint' approach are the ideas of progressive educators such as John Dewey and Paulo Freire. Using student knowledge and experience as a point of mutual engagement, UniFocus begins to explore the nature, purpose and processes of education. Through these kinds of dialogic encounters students begin to understand their own lives and the cultural processes required to successfully negotiate their way through university.

Importantly, UniFocus has enabled students to gain an understanding of the barriers and assets that they bring to their learning. This self-reflexive knowledge proves to be invaluable in helping students to build their own capabilities and autonomy as imaginative and creative learners.

Pearce, J. & Moore, E. A. (2002). Having it Both Ways: Challenging Institutional Borders for Social Justice. Paper presented at the Ninth International Literacy and Education Research Network Conference on Learning. Beijing. The People's Republic of China. 16-20 July.