Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia “Every Australian student will have significant exposure to studies of Asia across the curriculum to increase their cultural knowledge and skills and enable them to be active in the region.” AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY Australian Government White Paper

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia “We will need an education system - right from the very earliest years of schooling - that acknowledges and recognises Asian culture and history, equipping the next generations with the ability to operate more effectively in an Asia-centred world.’’ Dr Ken Henry, Head of the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper task force

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia “If you have kids at school and they are not learning anything about Asian culture or history, you should challenge the school or change it.” Amanda Vanstone The Age, 1st October, 2012

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia Martin Jacques author When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order Senior Visiting Research Fellow at IDEAS, at the centre for diplomacy and grand strategy at the London School of Economics Co-founder of the think-tank Demos Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC Visiting Professor at Renmin University, the International Centre for Chinese Studies, Aichi University, Nagoya, and Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto Former deputy editor of The Independent newspaper, UK

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia

Martin Jacques TED Talk

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia Question: What is your response to Martin’s proposition that the rise of Asia and China will fundamentally change the world as we know it?

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia Civilization state rather than a nation state Continuous, cohesive civilization and Confucian based cultural identity for over 2,000 years Powerful sense of racial identity - over 90% of Chinese identifying as Han for whom maintenance of the Chinese civilization is a priority The government is the guardian of the Chinese civilization- maintaining order and ensuring its continuance. Strong public approval

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia Questions: In terms of real student learning outcomes, what would you like to be achieving in your school in two years’ time? With the rise of Asia, how likely is it that the world will become increasingly unfamiliar to people in the west ?

Leading 21st Century Schools Victoria : Engage with Asia “We need to help them understand that there is a great big world out there that is neither white, not Anglo- Saxon nor Christian- and to whet their appetite to learn more.” Amanda Vanstone The Age, 1st October, 2012