Joint Working Group between India and Australia mooted

Updated on: Thursday, July 23, 2009

New Delhi: Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development has mooted the raising of the level of the Joint Working Group for Education between India and Australia to ministerial level.

In a meeting with Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Australia, Kapil Sibal stated that this working group could have within its ambit the social welfare of students, mutual recognition of degrees, academic cooperation etc.

He also said that the sub-group on social welfare of students must meet soon and submit a report by December.

During the meeting, he also suggested to the Australian Minister that both Australia and India could have a dedicated nodal officer at both ends to enable the free flow of information required related to students welfare and related issues. This could be particularly useful when there are doubts regarding quality of degrees being offered by an institute etc.

Both sides discussed at length the issue of recent incidents of violence on Indian students in Australia. The Australian Minister emphasized that the Australian government sees this both as a criminal issue and a public policy issue and his government is dealing with this on both accounts.
 

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