Monash U’s Indonesia achievement

As universities confront the cost of no Chinese students at semester start, Monash U begins work on a vast new market

What’s happened: As part of the Indonesian Free Trade Treaty announcements events yesterday Monash U announced it will open a campus in Indonesia.

Vice Chancellor Margaret Gardner announced the venture to staff, saying the wholly Monash-owned Jakarta campus will be “postgraduate, research-oriented and industry-connected,” and will teach Monash degrees.

While the campus will not teach UG courses, Professor Gardner stated it would, “facilitate flows of undergraduate students to other Monash campuses.” Monash U already has a wholly-owned pathway provider in Indonesia.

First courses are “short executive programmes” starting later this year with masters starting late next year.

Professor Gardner nominates data science and digital technology, infrastructure and urban planning, creative industry and entrepreneurship, and health systems and public health as teaching-areas.

Speaking in the House of Reps yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new campus will “establish deep research links” with, “Indonesia’s leading national, private and Islamic universities.”

What’s going to happen: Monash U expects staff to grow to 100 academics and the same number of professional staff by the end of the first decade. Student numbers by then will be, 2,000 masters, 100 PhD students, and 1,000 people in executive education programs. Fees are not set but MI is expected to price to the market.
The crucial bit is that MI will be a wholly Monash-owned entity, rather than a joint venture although it is not clear (at least to CMM) if it will be able to repatriate profits to Australia

This is a huge win for Monash U. From the start of international education Monash U was way ahead of the competition, starting in Malaysia in the early ‘90s, and now it leads into the last, great Asian education market.  No, it is not a bonanza yet, but it’s a start.

And it looks like a kappow in the kisser for Monash’s auld enemy, the University of Melbourne. Last year Uni Melb announced a long-play in Indonesia including professional education courses there, a “flagship” post-doctoral programme and a graduate-school (CMM August 23 2019). There is now a more immediate objective for planners in Parkville, – how to explain that Uni Melbourne is not a lesser part of Marvellous Monash.