BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

BRUNEI will be expecting to host the first Australian student at a local institution next year under Australia’s New Colombo Plan 2015, said Australian High Commissioner Todd Mercer on Friday.

The undergraduate

from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra will be studying in Brunei, as one of the 69 students who have been recently awarded scholarships under the New Colombo Plan 2015 to live, study and work across the Indo-Pacific region for up to a year.

“The New Colombo Plan 2015 is about encouraging Australian students to become more Asia-literate, to know more about this part of the world,” Mercer said.

“We’re very pleased that in the first batch, there will be a number of students and that one student from Canberra has won a scholarship to come and study in Brunei.”

Mercer added that “it was up to the students themselves to identify the country or the course they are interested in doing”.

According to a press statement by the Australian High Commission, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said that scholarship recipients had demonstrated academic excellence, a strong commitment to engaging with the countries they would be studying in, and character to represent Australia with distinction.

Meanwhile, Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne said that the scholars would be studying in “a wide range of disciplines including language and culture, law, business, engineering and natural sciences, with nearly all scholars planning to undertake an internship or a mentorship”.

However, Mercer maintained that details had yet to be confirmed about the student’s expected course of study or local host institution, sharing that the details are expected to be worked out over the next few weeks.

The Australian High Commissioner also said that they might be expecting another group of students to do an intensive placement in Brunei in the health services area, under the “student mobility component” of the New Colombo Plan 2015.

The press statement added that the Australian government has committed A$100 million in new funding over five years to implement the New Colombo Plan.

The Brunei Times