As part of the Australia Business Week, a delegation of Australian academicians visited India to strike mutually beneficial collaborations. Patricia Mascarenhas reports.
In order to bridge relationships between education training in India and Australia, a delegation of 40 academicians visited India recently. The sessions in Mumbai recognised that the aim was not only about recruitment of students from India to Australia, but also about a strong sustainable future, based on mutual collaborations and partnerships.
“We can now start looking at the problems faced by both countries, and how various institutes can work together to start solving them,” said Bridget Mckenzie, Victorian Senator and chair of the government's education and policy committee, adding that the Australian Government is committed to encourage international education, and student mobility is one of the key focus areas.
Internships are a major hallmark, under The New Colombo plan of the Australian Government. Under this plan, students are sent to India for internships, through which they get to understand the country, and also contribute and work alongside their Indian counterparts. For example, University of Western Sidney sent 10 students to attend lectures at St Xavier's College, Mumbai and intern at Tata Consultancy. “These internships help Australian students gather knowledge about the Indo-Pacific region. It allows them to go beyond our borders and on to the ground, particularly in India,” informed Mckenzie.
Today, there is a greater demand for international research partnerships, as they enhance the quality of research. Other benefits include accessing different labs and knowledge facilities, establishing networks with global scholars and linking with the best people in the world to establish the best research. “Without international partners it would be difficult to solve problems that are truly global in scale like climate change, poverty etc,” said Jim Lee, deputy vice chancellor, Macquarie University.
In India, the number of twining and exchange programmes taken up by Australian universities are also increasing. One of them includes a possible joint collaboration between the University of New South Wales and Apollo Medvarsity Online, for a one-year twining public health programme. In this partnership, Australian students will get an opportunity to study on the field in some primary health care centres across India, thus helping them get a global aspect of public health. “Students will learn eight months in India and four months in Sydney, and will be assessed and certified in New South Wales,” informed Srinivas Rao, vice president-operations, Apollo Medvarsity Online.
It is important to encourage student mobility and collaborations because through partnerships, skills can be pooled, in order to make the end product more successful than it might otherwise be. “The internationalisation of education is a response to the challenges and needs that globalisation brings,” said Malay Krishna, chair international relations, S P Jain Institute of Management & Research.
Sheel Nuna, director- South Asia, Queensland University of Technology agreed, “The best way to maximise human capital and the use of resources is to collaborate. Collaborations happen because funding is available i.e. the government is ready to pay for it, and if you have a project that is directly related to the community needs, the government will fund you,” he concluded.
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