PERTH – Thursday, January 22, 2026 – New funding of $1.8 million from the Australian Government will support Australian undergraduate students to study in Indonesia through Acicis in 2026, 2027, and 2028.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in December 2025 announced the outcomes of the 2026 round of the New Colombo Plan (NCP) program. Minister for Foreign Affairs Senator Penny Wong released the 2026 New Colombo Plan outcomes, which included a record 328 scholarships and strengthened emphasis on Asian language learning and longer-term experiences in the Indo-Pacific.
The funding for Acicis will support 175 students from the consortium’s 19 Australian member universities to participate in 12 study programs in Indonesia across diverse disciplines including Indonesian language, international relations, law, journalism, agriculture, business, development studies, and creative arts. These include both semester-long and short-format programs designed to provide Australian undergraduate students with immersive educational experiences in Indonesia.
Speaking from the organisation’s national secretariat at The University of Western Australia in Perth, Acicis Consortium Director, Liam Prince, welcomed the funding announcement.
“New funding to support Australian students to study in Indonesia on Acicis programs is always a positive development,” Mr Prince said. “Funding of this quantum is a welcome endorsement of the “consortium model” for provision of these offshore experiences and of Acicis’ role as a key partner in the delivery of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan,” Mr Prince added.
Indonesia continues to be designated as a priority destination under the New Colombo Plan, with a record number of students choosing to undertake study and language training there in 2026. Importantly, under recent reforms to the NCP, more participants than ever before will be developing Asian language skills—including in Bahasa Indonesia. Language learning has now been made a more explicit priority of the $51 million per annum Australian Government initiative. Under the 2026 funding round, the new NCP Semester Program has allocated 1,247 grants across 160 projects to give young Australians the opportunity to undertake semester- and year-long experiences that combine study and language learning across the Indo-Pacific.
“Acicis is supportive of the NCP’s new emphasis on language learning and focus on getting Australian students up to the Indo-Pacific for longer duration experiences”, said Mr Prince. “It’s a shift in direction for which we’ve been advocating for several years”, he added. “These reforms represent a rebalancing of the NCP away from the two-week study tours that have characterised the first decade of the scheme”, Mr Prince said.
Since the scheme’s launch in 2014, the New Colombo Plan has supported over 2,600 Australian undergraduate students to undertake Acicis programs in Indonesia through the Mobility program. Acicis has also supported numerous New Colombo Plan Scholars to undertake semester-long and full-year study in Indonesia, contributing to the development of Indonesia expertise among Australia’s next generation of leaders.
Over the past 30 years, more than 5,000 Australian and international students have undertaken study in Indonesia through Acicis programs. Today Acicis is the longest running provider of in-country Indonesian study programs for Australian university students and the primary mechanism through which Australian students pursue study in Indonesia for academic credit.
Acicis is a national, not-for-profit consortium of Australian universities. Since 1995, it has facilitated in-country study and internships in Indonesia for more than 5,000 Australian students. Acicis also coordinates national policy and advocacy efforts to strengthen Asian language education, including the Pledge for Asian Languages in Australian Schools (https://www.acicis.edu.au/blog/the-pledge-for-asian-languages-in-australian-schools/).
For more information, please contact:
Liam Prince
Consortium Director, Acicis
📞 +61 8 6488 6689
