A Study On Evaluation Of Australia International Scholarship Programs For Higher Education

International scholarship program for higher education as an important part of Australian foreign aid,is one of a important policy tools for public diplomacy/soft power and international development assistance and International education service trade.Evaluating the International scholarship program for higher education is of great importance to improving program management and confirming the realization of program objectives.In the 21st century,the Australian government devotes more and more time and resources to carrying out a systematic evaluation of international scholarship program for higher education to prove its effectiveness and rationality.In this study,the text of the evaluation report on the Australian International scholarship program for higher education released on the Australian government website such as the Australian Agency for International Development and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,as well as the Australian National Audit Office for the period 2009-2017 is taken as the research object.By using the method of text systematically analyze the evaluation plan,as well as select the case study of Australia's impact evaluation of International scholarship program for higher education implemented in Africa.Meanwhile,it also analyzes the historical development of the Australian International scholarship program for higher education with historical research.Through systematically analyzing the evaluation plan of the Australian International scholarship program for higher education,this study found that the Australian International scholarship program for higher education already has a relatively complete evaluation method and shows the characteristics of transparent evaluation results,institutionalized evaluation practices,and diversity of evaluation subjects.Of course,there are still some problems in the program evaluation process,including the failure to conduct counterfactual analysis,the lack of concurrent evaluation and the insufficient participation of recipient countries in assessment.The evaluation of Australian International scholarship program for higher education can provide reference for the evaluation of China's official scholarship programs.The evaluation of the official scholarship program in our country is still in its infancy.In order to improve the effectiveness of the program,it is necessary to improve the program evaluation and strengthen the research on the program evaluation theory and methodology.