Street scrape from Jalandah. Taken from Convenient Education

Convenient Education


Convenient Education is an interactive documentary about a scheme that promised so much. A young skilled workforce who would train themselves to do the jobs Australians don’t want to do. A multi-billion dollar industry that didn’t involve digging things out of the ground. And the dream prospect of a future in Australia for thousands of international students.

But it didn’t quite go to plan…

 

Project Information

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT

Written by co-director David Elliot-Jones

Convenient Education is about the business of opportunities and nation building in a young globalised world and the consequences of our desire to better ourselves. Shot in India and Australia over several years, the interactive documentary tracks a study abroad journey from Jalandhar, India to Melbourne, Australia. In 2009, before the international education crisis hits, we experience the phenomena of a bustling education-migration market extending from India to Australia, and interrogate the context that led to its rise. Louis Dai (co-director), as the son of Vietnamese boat people, provides a compelling narrative lead as he weaves the experiences of student-migrants into a larger Australian immigration story.

What we hope to achieve through the telling of this story is the documentation of an avoidable tragedy that ruined the lives of thousands, undermined a largely successful industry and ruptured Australia’s international reputation. It is our hope that in the future policies surrounding potential migrants and international students will have a greater humanist focus, in recognition of the enormous contribution that international education brings to the nation.

CREDITS

Louis Dai, David Elliot-Jones, Lachlan McLeod are Walking Fish Productions. Developed and produced in association with SBS, Screen Australia and Film Victoria. A Chocolate Liberation Front Production.

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CONVENIENT EDUCATION

Directed and Written by: Louis Dai, David Elliot-Jones, Lachlan McLeod
Executive Producers: Dan Fill, Frank Verheggen
Producer: Chris Sullivan
Editorial Supervisor & Writer: Alex West
Lead Developer: Stuart Flanagan
Narration: Louis Dai
Editors: Louis Dai, David Elliot-Jones, Lachlan McLeod, Dan Thomas
Design: Amy Alexander, Lee Mullen
Music: Sam Evans, Miles Stevens, Dan Sullivan
Sound: AJ Bradford, Miles Stevens
Colour Grading: Vincent Taylor
Project Co-ordinator: Amy Alexander
Production Assistant: Katy Morrison
Legal: Jenny Lalor
Business Affairs: Lindsay Lipson
Bookkeeping: Blue Rock

SBS

Executive Producer: Marshall Heald
Producers: Nick Doherty, John-Paul Marin, John MacFarlane
Interactive Design: Matt Smith
Interactive Development: John Halaseh

SCREEN AUSTRALIA

Senior Lawyer: Emma Dwyer
Investment Manager: Mike Cowap

FILM VICTORIA

Senior Lawyer: Michelle Rubin
Investment Manager: Franziska Wagenfeld, Lindsay Lipson

Footage supplied by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s Film Australia Collection Library Archival Sound, Images & Footage: SBS, NFSA, UNHCR Australia, Rio Tinto, AITE, Radio ZZZ, Corby Ziesman, Indus Age, Adam Carr, Dr. Arun P Sikarwar

Shot on location in Jalandhar, India and Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Australia. Internship supported by Film Victoria

Chocolate Liberation Front acknowledges the support of Screen Australia's Enterprise Program

© 2012, Chocolate Liberation Front PTY LTD, Film Victoria and Screen Australia

ISAN 0000-0003-3531-0000-N-0000-0000-5