Posted on 12/11/2005 6:56:33 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
THOUSANDS of Asia's best and brightest students will receive funding to study in Australian universities under a federal government scholarship program worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The scheme -- a new version of the Colombo Plan that brought 20,000 Asian students to study in Australia between 1951 and 1980 -- could be unveiled by John Howard as early as this week.
The biggest overseas education plan funded by Canberra is expected to be one of Australia's most tangible contributions to the concept of an East Asian Community, which will be discussed at this week's ASEAN and East Asian summits.
Details of the proposal could be announced to coincide with the Prime Minister's trip to Kuala Lumpur, to attend the inaugural East Asian Summit of 16 nations on Wednesday.
The scheme would see students from countries stretching from Pakistan to Japan offered scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate study over the next decade.
Senior government sources said the Government hoped that the new scholarships would build on the huge success of the 55-year-old Colombo Plan.
Many Colombo Plan students who studied at Australian universities have gone on to become leaders in their countries.
While the plan, one of the world's longest-running multilateral aid programs, still operates, Australia's focus under the scheme has shifted since the 1970s to technical co-operation projects, such as drug programs, rather than higher education scholarships.
The Government's new scholarship scheme will focus on existing Colombo Plan countries, which include Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan.
It is also expected to include provision for Australian students to study in Asia.
The initiative forms a key part of Canberra's strategy to be recognised as a full member of any institutionalised East Asian grouping, which might evolve from the inaugural summit in Kuala Lumpur.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said at the weekend that education should become a vital focus for an emerging East Asian community.
He said 205,000 students from East Asian Summit countries, including India, were already studying in Australia. "I think those numbers will increase and we have a substantial number of students studying in Australia on scholarship programs," he said.
Mr Downer said in Kuala Lumpur that there was a huge amount of work to do in lifting education standards in countries such as Indonesia, where only 60per cent of students went on to junior secondary school.
"Our ambition is to ensure that not only the mechanics of economic relations continue to develop in areas of trade and investment, but, more than that, we can all mutually contribute to a strengthening of the educational standards of the region," Mr Downer said.
Mr Howard is due to arrive in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, with the key ASEAN countries and partner nations Japan, China and India still deeply divided about the future of the East Asian Summit process.
Host country Malaysia is adamant the larger summit gathering should not be institutionalised or become an annual event.
Malaysia, strongly supported by China, wants any future East Asian community to be firmly based on the "ASEAN plus three" grouping, which brings together the 10 ASEAN nations plus China, Japan and Korea.
This would exclude the newly invited members of this week's East Asian Summit club -- India, Australia and New Zealand -- from a future grouping.
Singapore, with tentative backing from Indonesia and strong support from Japan and India, wants to see a more inclusive grouping that would have the nine-year-old ASEAN plus three meetings eventually merged into a formal East Asian dialogue, involving the 16 nations that will be present in Kuala Lumpur this week.
China hates to see India and Australia getting into the inner echelons of the ASEAN.
Can I assume that all Australian children were awarded with college scholorships before the money and desks were given to Asians?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.