Author: Andrew MacInyre
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What the land allows
I’m still casting around trying to get a solid grip on what might be thought of as the ‘framing factors’ of the natural history of Bunga. My aim is to understand the variety of plant and animal species that exist here and how they have interacted over time, but so far I haven’t got beyond…
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The Coming of Europeans
There have never been many people living at Bunga; the soil is not good enough. In the previous post, we saw a little of how the first humans came to and spread through the land mass we now call Australia and the sorts of environmental factors that governed early patterns of human settlement. Here at…
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The Peopling of Bunga
My previous post was an initial investigation of the basic geology of Bunga and how it has changed over time. There’s a whole lot more to be uncovered on that front, but this month I want to open another big topic: the evolving interaction of animal species at Bunga, starting with what may be the…
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What lies beneath?
The initial visual impression one gets of Bunga is of striking coastal beauty: partially forested undulating hills running down to the ocean. There’s some remnant farmland suggestive of its European agricultural past, but mostly the vista is of eucalyptus woodland, pockets of rain forest in the valleys and a ribbon of coastal heath along the…
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Where and what is Bunga?
I suppose questions of “where” and “what” are as a good a place to start as any! The area where I live on the far south coast of NSW is known locally as Bunga. But finding out just where and what Bunga is, is not easy. Google Maps will give you a dot point here.…
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Starting a university in Indonesia
Indonesia is accelerating its drive to strengthen human capital and thereby better position itself economically. One component of this is inviting leading international universities to establish fully fledged campuses inside Indonesia. Monash University is the first to do so. What will success look like? Success for Indonesia as a whole, success for the higher education sector…
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Out of the Box: Monash Indonesia
It’s been an exciting week for Monash University and anyone interested in higher education in Indonesia. During President Joko Widodo’s state visit to Australia, both the Prime Minister and the President announced that Monash University has been approved to establish Indonesia’s first foreign university branch campus: Monash Indonesia. Monash Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner…
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Indonesia’s creative economy, success and self-censorship
A thriving “creative economy” has developed over the past decade in Indonesia. Novelists, musicians and film-makers of all kinds have been able to take advantage of digital media to reach new audiences, particularly among the young. A shining example of this is the hugely popular and critically acclaimed novelist, singer and songwriter, Dewi “Dee” Lestari.…
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Indonesia post-reformasi
Correspondence in Australian Foreign Affairs “Retreat from Democracy?” by Tim Lindsey Andrew MacIntyre Tim Lindsey’s excellent essay, “Retreat from Democracy?” (Australian Foreign Affairs 3, July 2018), lays out clearly just how much the political climate in Indonesia has changed over the past decade. The optimism about extending democratic reform is gone, as is the hope…
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India’s Middle Class?
The Economist caused a stir recently with a cover story highlighting the extent to which the Indian middle class has been over-hyped as a ‘successor’ to the Chinese middle class. It had point. But there’s more to be said. India has indeed made spectacular economic progress. But income distribution is more skewed than generally recognised…
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Is Singapore the world’s education laboratory?
How an ageing population and slow growth is driving dramatic education reform in Singapore – with fascinating results. Governments in many countries are talking about reforming their education systems to better equip graduates seeking work and to provide business with the skilled labour force for which it cries out. Whether in Australia or Britain,…
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The ups and downs of Asia’s universities
The recent release of the Times Higher Ed rankings for Asian universities makes for interesting reading. A summary heading of the most conspicuous developments would go something like: Singapore on top, Japan slides and Southeast Asia rises. But it is worth digging deeper, as for all the heartache ranking schemes cause university administrators, they do contain…
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From Singapore to China
Last week I was visiting two of RMIT’s priority countries, Singapore and China. In Singapore, my focus was on building personal and institutional links. The personal links were with Australia’s new High Commissioner, Bruce Gosper, as well as significant alumni and philanthropic contacts. On the institutional front, it was about opening an important new institutional partnership…
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Visiting Gunditjmara country
Visiting Gunditjmara Country I recently returned from one of the most mind-opening trips on which I have ever been: a visit to Gunditjmara country in western Victoria (pink territory, bottom left on map). Along with nine other members of the University’s executive, I got to spend two days meeting with both elders and young people,…
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Employment, education and back to that new Adidas plant
For many years it has been widely accepted that there is a strong causal connection between additional years of formal education and likely future income. Simply put, data from around the world showed that, on average, university graduates could be expected to earn significantly more than those who did not proceed to university. That connection…
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What does a new Adidas plant have to do with the future of higher education?
Reading a story in The Economist last week about a new high tech production plant in Germany got me thinking about possible parallels in the evolution of some parts of higher education. The Adidas story is fascinating in its own right. I hadn’t realized the sports shoe industry is worth $80 billion a year; though I…
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Start-up dynamism in Southeast Asia
Author: Joshua Tanchel, Deloitte Australian start-up technology companies are finally getting some of the attention that they deserve from the government, media and big business. With increasing momentum in the sector, Australian start-ups need to be aware of all of their potential expansion opportunities. Instead of just looking to expand into the U.S and European… via…
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Judging governments
Evaluating the record of achievement of a government is deceptively difficult. Too often such assessments make insufficient allowance for inherited starting conditions, the impact of circumstantial events or do little more than reflect one’s underlying political views. A more subtle challenge is overstating the significance of government action — for good or ill. As the…
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Leaping and mounting: China’s changing political economy
A recent article by leading US-based China scholar, Dali Yang, tells a powerful story about the evolution of China’s political economy. The outlines of China’s truly spectacular economic progress are familiar: it has been leaping forward to become the world’s second largest economy in the world, to have the largest foreign reserves and the second…
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