Australia offers an attractive alternative for Japanese students and an opportunity to enhance ties with Japan through education, according to a former Australian envoy to Japan and one-time CEO of Qantas Airways.

John Menadue

John Menadue, chairman of Sydney West International College, visited Japan last week to encourage young Japanese to study in Australia "to get a better appreciation of your own country."

During his stint as Australian ambassador to Japan between 1976 and 1980 and as CEO of Qantas Airways between 1986 and 1989, Menadue worked hard to realize many important phases in Japan-Australia relations. The most prominent of these was the initiation of the working-holiday program in 1981, resulting in exchanges involving 100,000 Japanese and 25,000 Australian young people over the past 20 years.

At Qantas, he took the initiative to increase flights between the two countries from four per week to 25, helping to boost the number of Japanese tourists to Australia from 100,000 a year in 1986 to 500,000 in 1989.

Menadue wants to invite more Japanese students to Australia for exchanges and so they can study English in a conducive environment.

The education sector, the seventh-largest industry in the country -- bigger than eighth-placed wool -- is one of the fastest growing sectors in Australia, with the number of foreign students having grown from a few thousand to the current 150,000 in just 10 years, "due to the high standard of our education," he said.

"Australia is also very attractive for Japanese students, for its safety, beautiful environment and relative low cost. The tuition and living expenses in Australian colleges, in fact, are often just a fraction of many other overseas colleges," he said. Japanese high school graduates can also study at an Australian college for a year, he added, then go on to enroll in Australian universities.

He said his college, for example, has flexible entry periods and shorter curricula. These are well-suited and fit together with rigorous Japanese school programs, allowing students to enroll in semesters or weeks, and as individuals or as a group.

"It's when you go out of your own country that you clearly see both the strength and weakness of your own country," he said as a message to Japanese students, recalling his impressions during his overseas assignments.