Evaluating the soft power of outbound student mobility: an analysis of Australia’s New Colombo Plan

ABSTRACT

Outbound student mobility can be regarded as an important foreign policy initiative to exert and increase national influence in host locations. But how to evaluate the specific soft power influences remains unsolved. In this article, an educational soft power framework that can provide a reference in evaluating soft power of related education activities in future empirical studies is proposed. Taking the Australian short-term student mobility program, New Colombo Plan, as an example, the soft power pursuit of outbound student mobility is analyzed. Evaluating its detailed soft power elements and influences is conducted by examining its evaluation reports under the framework. The study then provides some suggestions for future implementation and study for promoting soft power.

KEYWORDS:

• New Colombo Plan
• outbound student mobility
• soft power
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 2020WKYXQN003.