Student swap to help fix India rift
AUSTRALIAN students will be able to complete part of their degrees at Indian universities, and Indian students in Australia, under a new scheme being worked out between the two countries.
After a serious rift over a spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney, and a massive fall in the number of Indian students coming to Australia, the federal government is trying to rebuild the relationship and targeting the country's massive, and growing, tertiary education sector.
International student visa applications from India dropped almost 63 per cent in the last financial year, a federal government report showed this week.
Education Minister Chris Evans is in India on a four-day tour, selling Australia as an education destination and encouraging greater co-operation between institutions.
One of the key priorities of the newly formed Australia-India Education Council will be a credit-sharing arrangement between universities in Australia and India, similar to those already established with countries such as China and Malaysia.
''So it's not just about an overseas degree in Australia, it's about allowing credit for exchanges, for a semester, a year. Many universities are looking to joint-badge degrees,'' he told The Age in Delhi.
There is still ''work to do'' in establishing a scheme with India, with the country still forming its regulatory framework.
Senator Evans said any scheme would also encourage Australian students, undergraduate and postgraduate, to study in India.
''I'm very keen to get more students to study abroad,'' he said.
''We can be monocultural in Australia, and we need to have our students with a view of the world, and with experiences in other countries, so we're very keen to get more Australian students to do at least part of their degrees in China and India and other places.''
The minister said recognising overseas qualifications benefited the labour markets of both countries.
''We are in a global economy now, companies are operating across borders, quality assurance requirements, all of those things take you towards that mutual recognition.''
With rising standards of living and a burgeoning middle class, India's tertiary education sector is set to boom over the next decade.
Already, places for some courses at prestigious colleges are demanding ''perfect'' scores to get in.
India will need 1000 new universities over the next decade to meet demand, India's Human Resources Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, said this year.
''Today 14 million people are served by 600 universities and 26,000 colleges. But in 2020 … this figure will touch 40 million.''