The next round of officials-level talks on an Indonesia-Australia trade agreement is set for August, encouraging optimists to wonder which university would get the nod if a deal extended to higher education.  Expert opinion suggests the two most likely to want to set up in Indonesia are Monash U and RMIT. Monash U hosts the Australia-Indonesia Centre and when its vice chancellor Margaret Gardener ran RMIT she was keen on expanding into Indonesia.

So keen, that RMIT is still seen as being best-placed, with good connections and the voced-cred Indonesia values. Whether Jakarta wants to expand the national skills base enough to drop the ban on international education institutions sending profits out of the country might be answered in the next talks, unless it isn’t.