The Australia India Education Council’s (AIEC) newly formed Schools Working Group leads are:
- Dr. Satbir Bedi, Joint Secretary, School Education And Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development
- Robert Randall, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority
Australian and Indian members of the Working Group are currently discussing an inaugural Work Plan for 2016-17, which will be presented at the next AIEC meeting.
Australia and India have a long history of bilateral cooperation in schools, including:
- The School Leaders Professional Learning (SLPL) program, which operated for 16 years and involved the exchange of over 300 Indian and Australian school leaders. Participants undertook reciprocal homestays, classroom teaching and learning about the systems of the host country;
- The Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement (BRIDGE) program, announced by the Australian Minister for Education and Training during his visit to India in August 2015. Participant teachers are undertaking exchanges to the host country, and then leading interactive online projects with students for the following year.
- A communique on 24 August 2015 between Australia’s research-intensive Group of Eight universities and prominent Delhi private schools, to cooperate in teacher development, personal development opportunities for students, summer schools and discipline-specific projects.
