The establishment of the Monash Asia Pacific Education Centre in January 1990 reflects a growing awareness of the significance of Asia and the Pacific for Australian education and of a corresponding need to generate educational programs that give practical expression to this awareness.
The centre is located in the Faculty of Education and has links with other faculties within the university, so that it networks with the Centre of Malaysian Studies, the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies and the Development Studies Centre.
The centre sets out to be responsive, to learn as well as to teach, to foster collaboration, to take and to share creative educational initiatives. Programs of the centre include the Asian Studies in Schools Project and intensive in-country language and cultural studies courses conducted in Indonesia, China and Korea. The centre also has an extensive research program.
Significant communication is sustained by means of conferences, `think tanks' of specialists in Asian studies and education, provision for associate membership of the centre, and informal as well as formal dissemination of ideas and research.
Dr Alan Rice is director of the centre, and the research fellow is Dr Margaret Woodward.