Investing in the Future

Since the early 1950s, more than 8000 Indonesian men and women have been awarded Australian Development Scholarships, making Australia the largest source of offshore scholarships in Indonesia.

Putting down her cup of strong kopi Bali, Luh Putu Eswaryanti Kusumu Yuni ('just call me Yuni') got straight to the point: 'it's not just formal studies that equip an academic for a more senior post,' she states emphatically.

According to Yuni, her day-to-day experiences as a post-graduate student in Australia from 2000-2002 proved as valuable, personally and professionally, as her two years of study and the Masters Degree in zoology that came at the end of it.

'More than anything,' she says of her time at the University of Tasmania, 'studying in Australia gave me more resolve and confidence in my role as a lecturer.'

The recipient of an Australian Development Scholarships, Yuni is now back at her alma mater, Udayana University, Denpasar, as a lecturer in zoology.

She earned her Master by Research through her studies of a small Tasmanian bird, the New Holland honeyeater. Two of Yuni's research papers on the honeyeater have since been published in Journal Biology.

'I had less supervision and more independence in my research work and those are two important lessons that I now apply in supervising my own students.

'How well I teach matters because one day preserving Indonesia's natural resources, such as our wildlife and forests, will be their responsibility,' she says.

Unlike Yuni, whose husband and two children accompanied her, Australian Development Scholarships returnee, Yulastiawarman, had only himself for company, which he says was a major advantage.

Aged 29 and an officer in Indonesia's Department of Foreign Affairs for your years, Yulastiawarman obtained a Masters Degree in 2003 at the Centre of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.

'I had my own workspace with a computer, which enabled me to study most days from morning to late, although I did try to keep weekends free for sightseeing and travel,' he explains.

The young diplomat's thesis was on the disputed South China Sea where six nations have competing claims. In it he advanced a formula for solution - confidence-building measures that, not surprisingly, would be best mediated by Indonesia, as a near neighbour but non-party to the dispute.

'The main thrust of my thesis,' says Yulastiawarman, 'is what I believe anyway - that dialogue is the only way to resolve conflict.'

Currently attached to the Bureau of Planning and Organization in the foreign ministry in Jakarta, Yulastiawarman can expect to go on his first overseas posting some time soon.

'I'll be happy to go where ever they send me, ' he says, before adding diplomatically, 'of course an Australian posting would be wonderful.'

Photos Jack Picone

2004