ARCHIVED MEDIA RELEASE
PA/23/2002 16 December 2002
Indian civil servants receive Australian MBA awards
Twenty-one senior Indian civil servants will shortly travel to Australia to take up awards to study Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programs.
The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) funds the MBAs under its Training and Capacity Building Project. More than 200 Indian civil servants have acquired MBAs from Australian universities under the project and previous programs since 1993.
The awardees will undertake their 12-month MBA programs at the University of Swinburne, Melbourne, the University of Southern Cross, Gold Coast, Queensland, and at the Australian National University, Canberra. The civil servants are from the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim and from the Central Government.
At a recent function to brief the officials before their departure, the Australian Deputy High Commissioner Ms Michelle Marginson said that Indian civil servants had high professional standards. She said that the MBA program afforded the scholars an opportunity to apply these professional skills in an Australian educational environment.
The scholarships are expected to further enhance human resource capacity in India's public sector by providing knowledge, skills and qualifications that will help the Central and state governments strengthen management of services to the public.
Australia is the third largest English-speaking country of destination for international students because it is internationally recognised as a source of high quality education and research excellence. At present, about 8000 students from India are studying in Australia, taking advantage of Australia's wide variety of quality, challenging education and training opportunities, mostly in the post-graduate fields of business, engineering and information technology.
AusAID's current Training and Capacity Building Project in India is supported by Australian Government funding of $20 million (Australian) over five years.
For further information, please contact Mr Kerry Groves, First Secretary, Development Cooperation, on telephone 6888223, ext. 561.