India, Australia looking to strengthen bilateral cooperation pertaining to skill development

In a bilateral meeting held on Wednesday between Minister of State (I/C), Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Karen Andrews, the Australian Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, the two factions discussed the strengthening of bilateral cooperation pertaining to skill development between India and Australia.

Andrews, who led a seven-member business delegation to India, during the course of the meeting observed that Australia has an internationally recognised training ecosystem appreciated by industries world over; and India, with its huge population and need for skills training, is positioned as a supplier of human workforce for the world, a vision championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Welcoming the delegation, Rudy said India's efforts to enhance employability of skills are paying rich dividends in utilising the demographic divide of India.

"We have created the platform and are now moving towards enhancing scale and outreach with speed and establishing skilling standards by promoting quality outcomes. We have been working in conjunction with Australia across several initiatives under skill development and we would now wish to strengthen the engagement further by mapping qualification packs of transnational standards which are admissible across both countries," he said.

"We are looking at benchmarking our certificates with international standard. We also look at Australia when we talk about training our trainers," he added.

Meanwhile, Andrews said concrete plans would be formulated after exchange of business delegations between the two countries. She said Australia can benefit from the young and skilled manpower of India.

"There is a huge market for adventure sports and tourism in Australia and we can certainly utilise skilled workforce from India to promote the same world over," she said.