Gandhinagar, Nov 6 (KNN) The Australia India Education and Skill Council (AIESC) will host its first meeting on Monday at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar to discuss future collaborations.

The meeting will be jointly chaired by Minister of Education, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan, Australian Minister for Education Jason Clare, and Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor.

“The AIESC, earlier the Australian India Education Council (AIEC), is a bi-national body established in 2011 to guide the strategic direction of the education, training, and research partnerships between the two countries. The scope of this forum was enhanced in alignment with the national priorities of both countries to bring focus on promoting internationalisation, two-way mobility, and collaboration in the domains of education as well as the skill ecosystem,” read a government release on Sunday.

The ministers will be visiting key institutions to identify critical themes for collaboration. This includes visits to the Centre for Creative Learning (CCL), IIT Gandhinagar.

The two-day programme “also includes a visit by Dharmendra Pradhan and Jason Clare to Gift City sites of Deakin University and University of Wollongong campuses and Arambh (the beginning): Australian University campuses in India,” the official statement added.

“A key feature of the second-day interaction is a discussion on Research Dialogue: New Horizon in Research Collaboration. The interaction is expected to identify innovative opportunities for deepening bilateral research collaborations in a thriving research ecosystem through industry partnerships, research workforce and strategies. It will also aim to facilitate research networks across chosen disciplines between the two countries,” the statement highlighted.

This AISEC meeting will provide a platform for academic and skill experts to discuss a wide range of mutually agreed priorities, with the ultimate aim of shaping the future of education and skilling in both our nations, the Ministry of Education underlined, adding that the discussions will follow the key three themes of shaping future workforces, strengthening institutional partnerships in education, and driving research impact through internationalisation.

(KNN Bureau)