India and Australia on Thursday signed an agreement for mutual recognition of qualifications that will ease mobility of students and professionals between the two countries.
The agreement, called the ‘Framework Mechanism for Mutual Recognition of Qualifications’, was signed following a bilateral meeting in New Delhi between Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Australian Education Minister Jason Clare, who is on a five-day visit to India with a large delegation of Vice-Chancellors of key Australian universities.
The agreement is part of the commitment by the Prime Ministers of both countries at the Second India-Australia Virtual Summit held on March 21, 2022, during which they agreed to establish a Joint Taskforce for mutual recognition of qualifications.
Mr. Pradhan told presspersons that the scope of the Australia India Education Council had been widened to include cooperation in skill development. He also invited his Australian counterpart for the 7th Australia India Education and Skill Council (AIESC) meeting to be held in September and for the G-20 Education Ministers’ Meeting in June.
Mr. Clare said the Australian universities were enthusiastic to work with their Indian counterparts through the mechanism of joint or dual degrees or twinning programmes that the University Grants Commission allowed last year under the National Education Policy 2020.
Mr. Clare said that the Australian government would be contributing 1.89 million dollars for running skills programme in India in the area of agriculture, which is a critical sector for India. He said that clearing pending education visas for Indian students was also a top priority for his country.
The two sides also discussed facilitation of more Australian students to come to India especially for both short and longer-term study, internships and research.
A number of institutional level MOUs were also exchanged between India and Australian universities for research and academic collaborations.
