Chennai, Apr 1 (PTI) The India-Australia relationship is at an all-time high and the scale of the cooperation between the two countries has grown swiftly since the agreement of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2020, the Australian Trade and Investment Commission said on Friday.
The summit held in March this year between Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Narendra Modi called for a new level of ambition to drive the cooperation forward, according to Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), senior trade and investment commissioner, Monica Kennedy.
At the Summit, the Prime Ministers announced a task force on education qualifications recognition which would address the recognition of different delivery modes including online learning, joint degrees and education at off-shore campuses, a press release said here.
The task force would deliver a mechanism for expanding education qualification between Australia and India by the end of the year, with implementation to take place in 2023, the release said.
On the education sector, Kennedy said her government was offering a range of visa support initiatives to international students including extra time for English language tests, temporary graduate visas among others.
The government was also issuing refunds to visa application to fully vaccinated international student visa-holders, who were studying in Australia between January 19 and March 19, 2022, she said.
“From November 22, 2021 to March 18,2022, 28,785 student visas were lodged by Indian nationals. The Australian government has worked hard to process student visas to ensure that Indian students are able to return to Australia to commence their studies for the first semester in 2022,” she said.
“A surge of applications has been successfully processed with 15,310 visas granted from November 22, 2021 to March 18, 2022 and over 25,000 students arriving on our shores to begin or resume study at Australia’s education institutions,” she said.
Noting that the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the lives of millions of students, she said Austrade launched ‘Study Australia Industry Immersion Programme’ (SAIEP) for Indian students in Australian universities to enhance their employability skills. PTI VIJ VIJ HDA HDA
