The Hon Jason Clare, Minister for Education, has released A Partnership for the Future: Australia’s Education Strategy for India.
Minister Clare visited India in November to demonstrate Australia’s ongoing commitment to the partnership in education and research with India.
The strategy recognises Australia and India’s continuing strong bilateral education relationship and will deepen the Australia-India education partnership across three pillars.
These three pillars represent a range of objectives and activities aimed at strengthening and deepening education connections between Australia and India.
- Pillar one – Delivering mutual benefits through education
- Pillar two – Strengthening institutional partnerships and research collaboration
- Pillar three – Enhancing people-to-people links, mobility and employability
During his visit, Minister Clare also co-chaired the first Australia India Education and Skills Council meeting with Indian Education Minister, the Hon Shri Dharmendra Pradhan and the Hon Brendan O’Connor MP, Minister for Skills and Training. This is the first meeting since the 2022 commitment to expand the remit of the Council to include skills – a vital element of the bilateral relationship.
Minister Clare says that international education is an important national asset.
“That’s why the development of Australia’s Education Strategy for India and today’s meeting of the Australia India Education and Skills Council are so important,” Minister Clare said.
“This is all about strengthening the education relationship between Australia and India.
“These developments also highlight that international education is not a one-way street, it is not just about international students coming to Australia, it is increasingly about Australian universities going to the world.”
Australia and India’s partnership, combined with India’s education reform agenda, creates significant opportunities for Australian and Indian education providers to build on existing cooperation to deliver a prosperous future for both nations.
India’s education reforms can also inform and support Australia’s own reform agenda across early childhood education, schooling, and higher education.
While in India, Minister Clare celebrated the establishment of new campuses of Deakin University and the University of Wollongong at GIFT City in Gujarat – the first foreign universities to establish Indian campuses.
Minister Clare also welcomed the commitment by six Australian universities from the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) to further deepen their engagement in India.