ARCHIVED MEDIA RELEASE
PA/09/2004 26 March 2004
Australia Promotes Excellence in Cricket and Education
Australia and India will combine a love of cricket and education when a university cricket team from the Australian State of Queensland arrives in India on 26 March 2004 to play a series of matches with their Indian counterparts. The team will be accompanied by former Australian test cricket captain, Mr Alan Border AO, and a delegation of senior Queensland academics and education officials that will conduct a series of seminars with four of India’s leading universities.
Welcoming the innovative combination, the Australian High Commissioner to India, Ms Penny Wensley AO said, “Australia is known for its world-class cricket. Our education system and institutions are also world-class and becoming increasingly known in India. This tour will highlight our shared love of sport, while promoting greater knowledge of the State of Queensland and its educational institutions. We hope it will lead to more academic linkages between Queensland’s universities and the leading universities of India.”
The cricket team comprises players selected from seven of Queensland’s nine universities and will play a series of matches in four Indian cities - in Chennai with the MRF Academy; in Mumbai with the MIG Cricket Club and Mumbai Cricket Association; in Bangalore with the Karnataka State Cricket Association and in New Delhi with an Invitational XI. In New Delhi, the team will also conduct a clinic with school cricket coaches.
“Education, like sport, is a great way to bring together the most talented and dedicated members of our global community to work towards our common goals, inspire each other, and ultimately achieve great things together,” noted Mr Allan Border.
Known as Australia’s “Smart State”, Queensland’s high quality education system, which is noted for its innovation and research and development, is fast becoming a favourite of Indian students with some 1,300 of the 14,400 Indian students who studied in Australia during 2003 choosing Queensland as their education destination.
“Queensland’s universities play a vital role in connecting Queensland to the global academic community through research and institutional links,” noted the Hon. Ms Anna Bligh MP, Queensland’s Minister for Education and the Arts. These links have been cemented by formal agreements at government level, such as the Queensland-Karnataka Memorandum of Understanding on Higher Education and the Education Exchange Programme on Education and Training which was signed in October 2003 by the Governments of Australia and India. “What better way to progress this friendship than through our shared passion for cricket,” added the Minister.
The accompanying education delegation of academics from Queensland Universities, headed by the Hon. Paul Braddy, Chairman of the Queensland Education and Training Board, will engage with Indian academics in a broad range of fields, including biotechnology, information technology, engineering education, social policy and governance. The delegation will also participate in a series of seminars, Advances in Science and Technology and its Management, organised by the Australian High Commission in collaboration with Anna University in Chennai; the University of Pune; Bangalore University and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
For further information contact: Mr Sheel Nuna, Senior Manager (Education and Training) Australian High Commission, 9810698007.