Conference works on rebuilding Australia-India relations

India needs to train 70 million people over the next five years – and Australia clearly wants some of the training pie. At an inaugural conference of the Australia India Institute, held at the University of Melbourne recently, the federal government took the opportunity to reiterate that the relationship between the two countries had “strengthened in spite of what we experienced in 2009”. Standing in for Tertiary Education Minister Senator Chris Evans, Senator Jacinta Collins, parliamentary secretary for school education and workplace relations, spoke of the two nations’ shared understanding of the transformative powers of education and the need to “harmonise” educational ties. “India aims to boost the percentage of its workforce with formal skills – through vocational education and training – from its current level of 12 per cent to 25 per cent by 2017,” Collins said. “That means training a staggering 70 million people over the next five years.” And later: “Savvy providers and companies are developing low-cost models of quality Australian training provision in India, rather than trying to attract students to a more costly model of training in Australia.” Her speech – which also touted the reforms announced in the just-released Knight review into student visas followed a high-level delegation featuring Senator Evans and a handful of Australian vice-chancellors and other university executives who travelled to Delhi in July. Out of that came a new Australia India Education Council, co-chaired by Evans and the Indian minister for human resource development, Kapil Sibal, with a vow to meet annually. At the time, Evans also issued a press release stating the pair had agreed to a memorandum of cooperation on student mobility and welfare. According to a DEEWR spokesperson, the memorandum has not been publicly released because it is yet to be signed. Last week the department did provide a joint August 1 communique from the ministerial meeting and also uploaded it to the Australia India Education website, launched in August. The communique also refers to the memorandum, which will oblige the two countries to “carry out measures to enhance the safety and welfare of students in both countries and strengthen the monitoring of education agent activities”.