Source: Australia Government Statements 2
Thank you, Lisa. And good morning, everyone.
I, too, would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands, the Wiradjuri and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin nations. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging, and extend my respect to any First Nations people joining us here this morning.
I’d also like to warmly welcome everyone who has travelled across our region and beyond from nearly 30 different countries to be part of this inaugural conference on development and education.
Thank you to the Australian Council for Education Research for bringing us all together on an incredibly important topic and one that is very, very close to my heart.
And to our colleagues from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, joining the Australian government in supporting this event. The UK, of course, has played a leading role in advancing girls’ education and foundational learning globally. And together, our two countries share a commitment to advancing educational policies and practices that improve learning and promote equity across the region.
Now, it is an absolute delight for me to join you this morning at a conference showcasing education and development research from right across the Asia Pacific. As a former academic, I must say coming to conferences is like Disneyland for me. Yes, I am a bit of a nerd. And while these types of conferences are common in the Northern hemisphere, today’s is the first of its kind in our region to meet the unique needs of our region.
Now, education is deeply, deeply personal for me and I want to share a little bit of my story with you around the transformative power of education. My grandfather, Mahmoud Osman, was by all accounts a fairly simple man. He didn’t get an education. He sold textiles on the high road in the village that my mother was born in, called El-Minya, which is about 200 kilometres south of Cairo. And that was at a time when girls did not get an education.
But my grandfather was adamant that his three daughters would finish high school and go on to university. And despite the men who frequented his little shop and all my uncles telling him that women didn’t need an education, all they needed to know was how to cook and clean for their husbands, my grandfather would not hear of it.
When my mother finished high school, my grandfather, unbeknownst to her, enrolled her at Kasr Al Ayni Hospital, which was the teaching hospital for nurses at the time. My mother protested, really protested. But he insisted that she would go to university and become a nurse. He bought her uniform, and he bought her all the things that he needed, and he personally drove her the 200 kilometres to Kasr Al Ayni Teaching Hospital. At the doors of the hospital, he was greeted by the matron, who told him to stop where he was because men were not allowed into the nurses’ quarters. My grandfather, Mahmoud Osman, insisted, absolutely insisted, that he was going to go and see where his daughter would be sleeping for the next three years while she was studying to be a nurse. Legend has it, and I’m not quite sure how real this legend is, but legend has it that my grandfather, Mahmoud Osman, was the first and only man to ever be allowed into the nurses’ quarters at Kasr Al Ayni Teaching Hospital.
My mother studied as a nurse. Eventually, when my parents migrated to Australia, she went on to become a head of nursing at some of Sydney’s largest hospitals and eventually working in aged care. But it was because of the love of a grandfather, a father for his daughter, that my mother was able to break free of some of the traditions that she grew up in to become a nurse.
Later on, it was me who benefited also from education. As I said, I was born in Egypt. My family migrated to Australia when I was just two years old. My father, who had graduated as an engineer back in Egypt, took a job as a bus driver in Australia because it was the only work that he could find. And I often think about the fact that I was born at a time and in a region where a second girl child, the daughter of a bus driver, could really only ever hope to be the second girl child and the daughter of a bus driver. But it was through education that I was able to lift myself and my children, as a single mother, out of poverty and reach the heights that I have reached today.
Education is the one thing that nobody can ever take from you, and I am living proof of that, as is my mother. I’m just going to flip through because I didn’t read any of that.
Education was central to the work that I did in the de-radicalisation and working with young people who had fallen prey to violent, dangerous ideologies. I’ve also had the privilege of being the Minister for Early Childhood Education in the last term of government. Driving our ambitious reforms for the sector was a vision that every Australian family, regardless of their circumstances, should have equal access to quality early childhood education and care for their children.
And so, when I speak of education, I don’t speak of education as a policymaker alone. I speak about it as somebody with a lived experience who owes every opportunity that I have had in my life to the power of learning and to people like my grandfather, who believed that education should never be out of reach for anyone.
Education isn’t just a pathway, though. It isn’t just about opportunity; it is actually about a basic human right. Every single child, every single person, every single girl should have the right to education. And investments in education and skills don’t just benefit individuals. They have a catalytic impact for entire societies and indeed for countries. They reduce poverty, they promote women’s empowerment, disability equity, human rights, climate resilience and health security. A child whose mother can read is 50 per cent more likely to live past the age of five. Think about that. A child whose mother can read is more likely to live past the age of five. When we think about the social determinants of health, education is right up there. And when girls are educated, they are empowered to marry later in life, have fewer children and be more likely to participate in the formal labour market, earning higher wages.
Put simply, education provides the building blocks for both personal and community success. And foundational learning from early childhood through to secondary education is where this starts because it underpins our broader investments at all levels, such as skills development, tertiary level scholarships and in leadership. It unlocks opportunities for lifelong learning. So, education is one of the best investments that we can make for the future of an individual, for their community and for their country. And so, this is also the approach that we take in our development cooperation.
There’s no doubt we live at a time of great disruption, where those who traditionally funded and aided and assisted in programs like education are stepping back. In this context, Australia has taken a decision not to step back. Rather, we are stepping up. We’re increasing our overall development assistance and focusing it on where it makes sense, the most difference and the greatest impact.
Under our landmark International Development Policy, the Albanese Government undertook to strengthen Australia’s approach to evaluation and learning. To ensure that our development program is transparent, effective and accountable, but also, and importantly, to ensure that it’s sustainable and to give us maximum impact.
Our government is committed to our international development program. We know it’s an investment into the future of our region and its people, and it’s in all of our interests. Over this financial year, Australia will invest nearly 600 million Australian dollars to help deliver lifelong quality learning opportunities, particularly for women, girls and people with disabilities. Because when we work together to empower people through education, our whole region, and that includes here in Australia, benefits.
Now, I saw some of this investment in action on my recent trip to Indonesia. With support from Australia, Indonesia has seen improved student performance in literacy and numeracy across 11 districts, including at a primary school I visited in East Java – one of the highlights of my trip. The head teacher there told me that making classrooms literacy-friendly had made a huge difference, that bringing parents into the process was really helping, and that shaping good practices between schools was working to extend the impact of the program. Now, Indonesia is one of our closest friends, both in terms of our partnership as well as geographically. Our prosperities are shared and are deeply intertwined.
Last month, I visited Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, where over 1.1 million Rohingya refugees are crowded into an area of less than 24 square kilometres. And if you want to picture that – well, when I picture that – that’s about a quarter of the electorate that I represent in Federal Parliament, 24 square kilometres. It’s not a lot. Cox’s Bazaar is the largest humanitarian crisis in our region. It warrants Australia’s biggest humanitarian response of over 1.26 billion dollars since 2017.
And while we and other partners are doing what we can, Rohingya children are still growing up without full access to education. It is heartbreaking. I saw firsthand how Rohingya children are yearning for the opportunity to learn. I met with a group of young girls there, and all they had was dreams. Not big dreams, small dreams by our standards. Small dreams of wanting to go to school, a small dream of wanting to get an education. The things that we take for granted because they know that education is what gives them opportunity. It’s only through better access to education, through skills, development and livelihoods, that these Rohingya children can hope for a better future.
And even with the limited access to education in Cox’s Bazaar, these children are taking their future into their own hands, using the internet to self-learn. So, you see, the children in Cox’s Bazaar have the drive and the passion but just think what they could give back to their community and indeed to their country and indeed to the world, if they just had the opportunity of an education. And as I said, education is not just about opportunity, it’s also about prosperity. It’s also about peace. Because in Cox’s Bazaar, in the absence of education, children are falling prey to radicalisation and they’re being recruited by armed groups. And violence is increasingly widespread. Girls are getting married younger because they have no other options.
There’s still so much more that we need to do to ensure that every person in our region can access quality education at any age and regardless of their gender or of their faith, their ethnicity or their disability. And we need to be creative and united to tackle and overcome challenges and barriers to education where they do exist. This includes improving understanding among communities, including in Australia, about how and why our development cooperation is critical to building a more equal, safe and secure region.
We bring this conviction to our education partnerships across our region and as we work together to ensure that education systems and policies at all levels reach learners in all their diversity. In tandem, Australia is leading efforts to advance gender equality, including through our International Gender Equality Strategy, and we’re championing the rights of people with disabilities through our International Disability, Equity and Rights Strategy. However, maximising these efforts, particularly in the global environment that we are in, requires collective action. It requires innovation and leadership from across our region, and it relies on building understanding and resilience between our people, on strengthening those human bridges between all nations.
Our Australia Awards program exemplifies the pathway for achieving this. It draws on the strength and global reputation of Australia’s tertiary education institutions to empower regional advocates and leaders. Scholars return home equipped with world-class skills and a deep understanding of inclusive development. Australia Awards alumni become catalysts for change, deepening relationships and institutional ties. Their experiences here and the cultural perspectives they share with Australians demonstrate how education can transform communities across the seas. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to meet some of our Australia Awards scholars here, as well as recipients of Australia Awards when I was in Indonesia. I have to say it was quite a surreal experience to meet some of my former students while I was in Indonesia as well. It’s even more surreal that I remembered them.
There’s no doubt that education is a powerful conduit for sharing experiences, for building enduring partnerships between Australia and our region. And I invite us all, every single one of us, to keep thinking about how we can do this better. I’m extremely proud of the significant contributions that the Australia Awards have made, and I know that there are many alumni attending the conference this week as well. So, I want to say thank you for being part of the Australia Awards family.
Now, as we begin today’s conference, let’s return to the reason that we’re all here. To celebrate and to uphold the transformative power of education. I believe that what I’ve learned from my own life is that education is the ultimate means to empower a person, their family and their entire community. It’s the foundation for achieving sustainable development, for providing the building blocks for quality learning throughout life and necessary – absolutely necessary for a peaceful, prosperous and stable region. So, I wish you all the best for the coming days, and I encourage you all to share your knowledge, experience and passion to reimagine the future of education in our region and to create a brighter future for all.
Thank you.