INDIA: Consolidating educational links

Australia's Education Minister Julia Gillard and India's Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal signed a Joint Ministerial Statement last Thursday aimed at strengthening educational ties between the two nations.

The statement confirms Australia and India's commitment to expand the current education exchange programme to achieve greater cooperation between the two countries' schools, higher education, vocational education and training sectors.

The ministers said the aim was to strengthen an "already solid partnership" and open more avenues to share expertise in education. The meeting was the result of a commitment made in New Delhi last August to start an annual dialogue between the two Ministers and followed efforts by Australia to counter widespread condemnation in the Indian media over attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney.

The ministers said that leading education providers and businesses in Australia and India would also participate in the discussions, providing an opportunity for all levels of the industry to consider ideas and share expertise.

They agreed to investigate establishment of an India-Australia Education Council to improve collaboration on education-related issues. The council would consist of academics, policy-makers and industry representatives and would be asked to explore new partnership opportunities in key fields such as skills demand and education resources.

Gillard congratulated Sibal and his government on the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 which came into effect in India on 1 April. The act makes education a fundamental right for all Indian children between the ages of six and 14.

A key challenge facing Sibal and the government is recruitment of up to 800,000 new teachers to achieve the aims of the act. Gillard said the Australian government was committed to providing assistance to Indian institutions with teacher training initiatives. Australian providers are also hoping to increase their involvement once the Indian government has passed its Foreign Education Institutional Bill.

A total of 135 institutional partnerships are already in place between the two countries and the ministers agreed to initiate a joint faculty development programme that would allow regular exchanges in mutual areas of teaching, research and curriculum development.

Australian representatives from the vocational education and training industry are also working with their Indian counterparts on the establishment of an Australia-India Bureau designed to assist with the development of the Indian vocational education and training system.