AII/Myer Foundation/AusAID BRIDGE Program
AII/Myer Foundation/AusAID BRIDGE Program (Building Relations through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) is currently the AII's largest program. The BRIDGE program has been operating successfully since 2008 and is managed by the AII in conjunction with the Asia Education Foundation. The AII has received funds from The Myer Foundation and AusAID to support the program. The BRIDGE program is an innovative education project which funds visits by Indonesian teachers to Australian schools and supports development of school e-twinning and an online collaborative curriculum strategy between Australian and Indonesian schools.
Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE (Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) Program
Program overview
The BRIDGE program is an initiative of the Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII) and the Asia Education Foundation. The program is supported by The Myer Foundation and AusAID. Since the program's inception in 2008, partnerships have been established between 93 schools in Australia and Indonesia and 184 Australian and Indonesian teachers have been directly engaged in the program. A further 1,000 Australian and Indonesian teachers and 90,000 Indonesian and 30,000 Australian students have been indirectly engaged in the program. The BRIDGE program has also led to the development of 20 online collaborative and technology training activities to support classroom-to classroom engagement and the establishment of 47 online school partnership 'Wikispaces' to support interaction.
Program aims
- Increase Indonesian teachers' and students' knowledge and understanding of contemporary Australia.
- Increase Australian teachers' and students' knowledge and understanding of Indonesia, particularly the role of Islam in contemporary Indonesian society.
- Support linkages between school communities in Australia and Indonesia.
- Support foreign language acquisition in Indonesian and Australian schools.
- Support a small cohort of BEP (Basic Education Program) schools to acquire Internet technologies and undertake basic training related to their usage.
Major activities
- A [3-week] visiting Indonesian teachers program: providing opportunities for teachers from Indonesia to spend time in Australian schools, to build their capacity and skills as teachers and to foster school-to-school and personal relationships.
- Development and provision of online resources and training to support sustainable school partnerships: to support Australian and Indonesian teachers to participate in longer term engagement.
- Grants to support the implementation of school partnerships: for fostering ongoing links between Australian and Indonesian school communities.
- Mentoring relationships established between participating non-BEP Indonesian schools and their BEP counterparts: assist BEP schools to use technologies in schools and forge relationships with Australian schools.
- Support for participating Indonesian BEP schools: to join the program in Australia.
- Provision of computer hardware (where appropriate) and related support for participating Indonesian BEP schools.
- Monitoring, evaluation and reporting of project outcomes.
More information
BRIDGE Australia-Indonesia School Partnerships brochure (PDF, 5.90 MB)
Information on the BRIDGE program can be found on the Asia Education Foundation's website.
Focus on Indonesia: 'Bridging the cultural and education divide' [PDF 1MB]
For further information, visit http://www.bridge.edu.au or email the Project Manager, Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE Project at the Asia Education Foundation on bridge@asialink.unimelb.edu.au