How the Kingdom of Bhutan played the Australian Government and won

The Australian Government's Endeavour international scholarship program had strategic interests in international education at its core, but uneven and strategically incompatible outcomes emerged over the 16 years of its existence. An unexpected outcome was the dominance of the small Himalayan nation of Bhutan as a substantial beneficiary of the program. This research draws on official Endeavour recipient data for the years 2007 to 2019; on qualitative interviews with scholarship program stakeholders in Australia, and on two unpublished reviews of the program obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI). Combined, they reveal the workings of an ambitious scholarship program into which significant public monies were invested, but which was hampered by its adherence to a poorly-defined concept of 'merit', inadequate consultation with stakeholders and a failure to connect with international education priorities in a way which might have resulted in more valuable outcomes for Australian international education providers.