India, Oz to boost education links

New Delhi, November 22

India and Australia today pledged to take their cooperation in education forward with HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal holding productive bilateral talks with Minister for Education of Australia Dan Tehan.

Pokhriyal and the Oz minister discussed many areas of potential contribution between India and Australia in the field of higher education.

“The government has initiated several schemes for improving the quality of higher education by way of internationalisation of the sector through Scheme for Promotion of Academic Research and Collaboration (SPARC) and short term India-centric courses,” said Pokhriyal in his meeting with Tehan.

Australia, on its part, told India that it would soon announce a regulatory framework to cover short term vocational courses, which were operating unregulated so far.

Pokhriyal spoke of how the launch of SPARC through joint plans, 54 collaborations between Oz and Indian institutions have been started.

The Indian side also spoke of “Study in India” plan which aims to provide quality education to international student community and promote Indian education system. — TNS