file photo
NEW DELHI: India and Australia on Monday deepened their education and skills partnership with the University of New South Wales (UNSW), ranked among the world’s top 20, receiving a Letter of Intent to establish a campus in India, becoming the fifth Australian university to get such approval. The two sides also sanctioned Rs 9.84 crore under the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) for 10 new joint research projects in frontier areas such as advanced computing, sustainability, healthcare and space.The announcements were made at the third meeting of the Australia-India Education and Skills Council (AIESC), co-chaired by union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Australia’s education minister Jason Clare. Skill development minister Jayant Chaudhary and Australia’s skills and training minister Andrew Giles were also present. Pradhan later held bilateral talks with Clare and Australian assistant minister for international education Julian Hill.A key focus of the meeting was sports integration in school education and higher education, alongside early childhood education and care (ECCE). “Both sides should explore opportunities for sports cooperation at both the school and collegiate levels, enabling students from both countries to visit each other and experience the sports ecosystem in both nations,” Pradhan said, calling it the start of a wider sports partnership between the two countries. On ECCE, the two sides agreed to align the CBSE’s early childhood curriculum with Australia’s Certificate III in Early Childhood Education to strengthen teacher training, curriculum innovation and workforce development.The Letter of Intent to UNSW was handed over by higher education secretary Vineet Joshi under the UGC’s 2023 regulations on foreign university campuses. UNSW joins La Trobe University, Victoria University, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, which had received similar approvals earlier.Under SPARC, the 10 joint research projects will involve Indian institutions such as IIT Kharagpur, BITS Pilani, VIT Vellore, NIT Trichy and NIT Surathkal, partnering Australian universities including Melbourne, Queensland, Monash, UNSW and UWA. The projects span energy and climate, healthcare and MedTech, smart materials, and space and defence technologies.Multiple MoUs were also exchanged during the day in agritech innovation, marine sciences, disaster resilience, global job readiness, mining and large-scale teacher training.
