Japanese student mobility to Australia: distortions in policy and practice

This chapter examines the role of international education agents in facilitating and shaping student mobility from Japan to Australia. Despite favourable bilateral relations and policy support for international education, Japan-Australia mobility has stagnated, exposing a gap between policy and practice. This chapter interrogates this gap through interviews with international education agents involved in advising and supporting Australia-bound Japanese students. These interviews highlight how agents navigate competing narratives, expectations and structural and cultural constraints relevant to students’ decisions to study (or not) in Australia. Agents play a crucial role in reconciling institutional and governmental discourses, emphasising global talent development with students’ more individualised motivations, such as lifestyle and personal growth. Rather than merely bridging the policy-practice divide, agents sustain and manage this divide by strategically interpreting and presenting study abroad opportunities in ways that align with varied stakeholder interests. The findings underscore the complexities of student mobility and the nuanced role of intermediaries in shaping transnational education and migration pathways.