Pat Evans, Executive Director, Export & Investment Services, Austrade 5 March 2010 In my opening I’d like to: - introduce Austrade to you (some know us well, others probably have had less contact)
- talk about our approach to the integration of responsibility for the international promotion of education including the importance of stakeholder feedback and input
- start to flag opportunities for the future – early days and we want to hear from key stakeholders as we develop future strategies
So today is a great opportunity for us to hear from you and we are pleased to be here.
Today, I’m joined by two colleagues – David Crook, Corporate Secretary and Peter Mackey, Senior Industry Adviser (Education and Training).
We understand we have been given a very important new responsibility by the government and we take that responsibility extremely seriously.
We appreciate the broader role of education in Australia’s national and international life – it’s much more than pure commerce, even though that aspect is significant.
For Austrade it’s about safeguarding and developing international relationships and our capacity to engage successfully in a competitive and sophisticated global economy.
The international promotion of education represents one form of public diplomacy which helps to build our society and prosperity.
In my student days at the University of Alberta, Canada I started the local AIESEC Chapter – that organisation was set up initially in 1949 in Europe to increase the global connections for business students to help improve cultural understanding and international business linkages and contribute to a better world.
That organisation is still going and the need for global citizens who have those international insights and understandings also still exists. Fortunately opportunities for students to gain an international education and all the inherent benefits that brings, are much more plentiful, and Austrade is looking forward to taking up our expanded role in this arena. About Austrade Most of you would know us as the government’s trade agency – from 1 July 2008 we became the government’s trade and investment agency with the transfer of responsibilities from Invest Australia to Austrade. That has changed the focus for Austrade significantly.
We are in the business of assisting firms and institutions of all sizes develop markets and new products and services, as well as attracting foreign direct investments to Australia.
Our global network spans 55 countries and 99 points of service to promote Australia’s capabilities, products and services. We worked with over 15,500 businesses in 2008/09 and helped out on more than 500 inward investment projects.
Our current corporate strategy is focussed on delivering advice, information and services to business, industry and government. We work with three levels of stakeholders: national level, industry level (ie peak bodies such as Universities Australia -ACPET, English Australia, TAFE Directors Australia & IEAA) and enterprise level, in your case the institutions. Our strategies involve increasing prosperity, building capability and reducing barriers.
In the past under a strategy to double the number of exporters, Austrade was seen to work with businesses to increase prosperity. Our mandate now is much, much wider and for education that means we will also work at the sector level with peak bodies and other allies to build capability and reduce barriers.
At the national level we have an important role to play to ensure input and insights from our offshore and onshore networks are fed into policy development and we’ll be working closely with our colleagues at AEI and other federal departments in this regard.
In addition Austrade is playing the lead role in the Brand Australia project which is a four year $20M program announced by Minister for Trade, Simon Crean, in August 2009. The project is about positioning Australia for the 21st century – the fact that we are more than a mine, a farm or a beach – it’s about our innovation, creativity, diversity and scientific endeavours.
The quality of our education system is a key part of that story. It’s about updating our national reputation/national brand to reflect the reality of our society, our economy and our culture.
The quality of our education services, our universities and training institutions will be critical components in underpinning the new Brand Australia. The higher education sector is well represented in that process as Professor Margaret Gardner, Vice-Chancellor of RMIT, is a member of Minister Crean’s Advisory Board and senior representatives in the sector have contributed to the qualitative research undertaken.
At the institutional or enterprise level we are already working extensively with the education sector – our current education network within Austrade consists of over 70 Austraders who have some responsibility for education and training and in 08/09 we made EMDG payments to 239 education providers, assisted 465 unique education providers - across universities, ELICOS, VET, & schools, we helped facilitate three inward investment successes and managed over 50 global education exhibitions in 2008/09.
That institutional level work will continue, and will be enhanced by strategic initiatives designed to build capability. In 2009 our Visiting Researcher Program, which is a joint initiative with AEI, is sending leading Australian academics and PhD students in renewable energy to Europe to expand their contacts.
In 2008-09 we hosted a visit from officials at Abu Dhabi’s MASDAR Institute of Science and Technology to promote our alternative and sustainable energy sector.
In other areas such as water we are acting as a catalyst to bring together a government and governance focus on key issues for more effective water use, with R&D support from universities, along with water utilities charged with policy implementation, and consultants and suppliers who service the sector.
We are working closely with Commercialisation Australia and see that with our reach and international focus Austrade has a key role to play in assisting with commercialisation and R&D initiatives across a range of sectors.
This is a new direction for Austrade and I believe our new direction positions us well to take on an expanded role in the promotion of international education.
To assist our staff to work in this new environment we have changed our individual performance measures from a numbers driven, quantitative outcomes focus to what we call KNOW, SHARE, SUCCEED, better reflecting the importance of qualitative, long term capability development as well as export and investment outcomes. Quick Update on Transition Issues - Working closely with AEI on transition issues and going forward I see us having a far closer relationship with AEI than we had before.
- Focus on “seamless” transition so lots of energy going into some of the basics which must be resolved internally such as staffing, both onshore and offshore. We have advertised for a National Manager to lead our education unit and for three education Trade Commissioners in market.
- Working on role clarification between AEI and Austrade both on and offshore.
- Recognise website is critical – people working on transfer of the Study in Australia website to Austrade, also the market information package and newsletter preparation.
- Offshore – our teams are getting across changed responsibilities in relation to agents, market updates and events.
- Training - we know we have a lot to learn and will also be focussing on upskilling the Austrade network to understand what this new responsibility for education involves.
We see communication and consultation as a key part of this process. Our first industry stakeholder consultation session was held on 16 December 2009. Since then we have had some individual meetings and our Acting CEO Peter Yuile addressed the Australian Technology Network of Universities in early February. A range of meetings have been held offshore including with the senior delegation of AIEA (Association of International Education Administrators) who met with our Senior Trade Commissioner in Washington.
We are holding the next industry stakeholder consultation session later this month (invitations were sent out this week) and we will continue to have individual and state based meetings seeking industry input and feedback. We will also be involved in the Re:New AEI consultations later this month.
Those consultations have all been extremely beneficial in helping us understand the extent of the responsibility we have been given.
For me the big challenge is to create a new Austrade that continues to deliver what was provided: by AEI and: by Austrade +++ PLUS
“Plus” means an extra value add that neither organisation could deliver on its own
“Plus” means finding the synergies and benefits that are “do-able”, now that the international promotion of education lives within a strategically focussed trade and investment agency.
In speaking with many of you I have heard some good ideas of where that value add exists now or can be developed: - Many have mentioned our in-market presence and just more eyes and ears on the ground
- Our focus on inward investment and how an Austrade aligned with the needs of the sector can play a key role in capacity building
- Our sectoral focus – we have Austrade-wide teams working in key industry sectors – this provides an opportunity to tap into education and training initiatives outside the traditional education sector, whether that’s R&D in clean energy, staff training in financial services or field training services in mining, or agriculture.
Wrap Up I have tried to give you a sense of what Austrade is about and an idea of how we are approaching our expanded responsibilities in education. I’d like to close with an invitation to all of you to provide your ideas and input on how we can deliver that “PLUS” factor I was talking about.
Please provide your input either through your peak body or directly to us. We welcome your ideas and genuinely want to work with you going forward to promote our quality education system, to achieve sustainable growth and to realise the sector’s full potential to contribute to Australia’s place in the world.
As part of that input I’m looking forward to hearing from our three panellists who have each been asked to speak about international education strategies, where we want international education to be and key steps along the way. |