New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS) The attacks on the Indian students in Australia were not due to racism but the ‘challenges of cultural spheres’, Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese said Tuesday.
‘There is a 250-300,000 diaspora in Australia. The student conflict in Australia sometime back happened not because of racism or globalisation but due to challenges in the cultural spheres,’ Verghese said, delivering a lecture on ‘Australia-India Relations and Australian Multiculturalism’ in the Indira Gandhi National Open University here.
A number of cases of assaults on Indian students in Australia were reported during 2009, making it a major diplomatic issue between the two countries.
‘People to people contact is a very important component between the two countries. India is the second largest source of students and professionals for Australia,’ Verghese said.
‘We have been making changes in the migration programme from time to time. There was too much focus on student numbers earlier, fuelled by a tremendous growth in private vocational institutes. It has shifted from being supply driven to demand driven,’ he said.
The high commissioner stressed that the bilateral relations in the field of education were growing.
‘We are setting up a bilateral education council to bring together the governments of India and Australia, the vice chancellors and the business sector, including chambers of commerce. This is part of our endeavour to re-build programmes in educational institutes at a government level and the better design of vocational programmes for students,’ Verghese said.
Stressing the similarities between India and Australia, he noted that multi-culturalism is a bond between both countries.
Speaking on the association between IGNOU and Australia, university Vice-Chancellor V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai said: ‘We have a longstanding association with Australia. Our students have been going there on scholarships. IGNOU is running a programme on Australian Studies in SOSS. We also have a joint Ph.D. programme with the University of Queensland and a collaboration to make teachers more technology enabled’.
