Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE Project
The BRIDGE (Building Relations through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) Project is the Australia-Indonesia Institute’s flagship project and is supported by the Australian Aid Program. The BRIDGE project has been operating successfully since 2008 and is managed by the AII in conjunction with the Asia Education Foundation. The BRIDGE Project is an innovative education project which funds visits by Indonesian teachers to Australian schools and supports the development of school e-twinning and an online collaborative curriculum strategy between Australian and Indonesian schools.
Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Greg Moriarty, talks about BRIDGE
To date, the project has established 96 Australia-Indonesia school partnerships and directly involved over 380 Australian and Indonesian teachers. A further 1,000 Australian and Indonesian teachers and 90,000 Indonesian and 30,000 Australian students have been indirectly engaged in the project.
Project outcomes include the development of professional and personal relationships between Australian and Indonesian teachers, collaboration between students in Indonesia and Australia using online tools, and the creation of partnership Wikispaces to share student work.
BRIDGE recognises that intercultural understanding is essential to equip young people to live and work successfully in the twenty-first century as responsible local and global citizens. The project aims to support students to develop intercultural understanding and to develop teaching skills and capacities to equip them to undertake this work in schools. BRIDGE is based on the principle that effective use of innovative technologies by teachers and students will build people-to-people links that develop communities of friends and learners across borders.
The program aims to:
- support teachers' professional learning around the use of innovative technologies to develop intercultural understanding;
- provide opportunities for teachers, students and school communities to engage and learn with partner schools in Asia; and
- support the uptake and implementation of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, the Australian Curriculum and the Digital Education Revolution.
The objectives of the Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE Project are to:
- create and support school-to-school partnerships;
- improve the intercultural knowledge and skills of all participants;
- improve the ICT knowledge and skills of all participants;
- build professional knowledge and skills, including strategies of effective teaching practice, among participant teaching staff; and
- provide particular support to developing Basic Education Program schools in Indonesia.
Marlborough Primary School's reciprocal visit to Indonesia by BRIDGE partnership teachers and school principal
Indonesia BRIDGE Principal workshop in Jakarta
Professional Learning Program in Australia
Two Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE professional learning programs will take place in 2014 (February/March and May/June). Selected Australian and Indonesian schools will each nominate two teachers to participate in the professional learning program. The Indonesian teachers will visit Australia for three weeks. The program includes:
- A two-day professional learning program on building knowledge and understanding of Australia for Indonesian teachers aimed at providing an overview of Australian culture, society, history and education systems.
- A five-day professional learning program focused on building relationships, intercultural understanding and use of social media in teaching and learning for Australian and Indonesian teachers to support communication and collaboration, building of school partnerships and the sharing of pedagogical practice.
- A 12 day school and homestay program that provides opportunities for Australian teachers and students to interact with Indonesian teachers, experience aspects of Indonesian culture across curriculum areas, establish the terms and nature of the school partnership, plan for future collaboration and share teaching experiences.
- A one-day debriefing to reflect on Indonesian teachers experience in Australia and share ways forward for online engagement.
Information on the BRIDGE program can be found on the Asia Education Foundation's website.