Four UNSW Business School students are among 69 of Australia's top undergraduates to receive top tier New Colombo Plan scholarships, worth up to $67,000 each, to study in the Indo-Pacific.
Four UNSW Business School students are among 69 of Australia's top undergraduates to receive top tier New Colombo Plan scholarships, worth up to $67,000 each, to study in the Indo-Pacific.
One of the four, Tyce Barton, who was named NCP Fellow for Malaysia, plans to undertake an internship with Malaysia-based solar cell giant AUO SunPower.
The Fellowship is an honour which is awarded to top ranked students, and only one person is selected per host country.
Benefiting over one hundred students, UNSW received a total of $434,000 under The New Colombo Plan Mobility Program - a government initiative to support undergraduates to study and become interns in the Indo-Pacific region.
Out of the $434,000, the largest portion ($198,000) will support short term mobility programs, and 43% of this funding has been allocated to the Business School's "Global Business Practicum" course.
Up to thirty students taking this course will be able to receive scholarships to subsidise their travels when lecturers take them abroad to increase their exposure and understanding of the international work place. Twenty students going to Hong Kong (January 2016) will receive $3000 and up to ten students going to Jakarta (November 2015) will receive $2000.
The UNSW Business School Students were awarded the New Colombo Scholarships by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Education Minister Christopher Pyne in December.
"Malaysia has commenced an energy diversification plan, which will see many renewable energy sources feeding electricity into the grid," Barton says, "I'm looking forward to experiencing great ideas like this and bringing them back to Australia to help build a more sustainable future."
The remainder of the $434,000 funding will be split in two directions: $170,000 will be used for semester-long exchange scholarships and $66,000 will be available to undergraduates via the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS).
ACICIS is a non-profit national educational consortium that has twenty one Australian member universities, including UNSW. It runs a variety of study options in Indonesia and aims to provide students the best possible educational experience in Indonesia.
The New Colombo Plan is a signature Australian government initiative to financially support undergraduates undertaking study, practicums, clinical placements or internships in the Indo-Pacific region.
In 2015, the program will have thirty-five host locations, offer sixty-nine scholarships and $8 million mobility grants for undergraduate students. An estimated 3,173 Australian undergraduates from thirty-seven universities will be expected to benefit.
"The expansion of the New Colombo Plan in 2015 reflects the strong support of partner governments for the Plan's aims of lifting knowledge of the region in Australia and for the Plan to become a 'rite of passage' for Australian undergraduate students." says Ms Bishop.
The five-year $100 million Colombo Plan program was first launched 10 December 2013.
UNSW Business School scholarship winners and host institutions
Malaysia:
Tyce Barton – University of Malaya
Sonia Parulekar – University of Malaya
Jotham Young - University of Malaya
South Korea:
Jun-Yi Lau - Postech