This was Minister Jason Clare’s third official trip to India since taking up the education portfolio three and a half years ago. Having travelled to India with five successive Australian Federal Education Ministers, I can confidently say that our current minister is the most connected and genuinely enthusiastic about the potential of the Australia–India bilateral education relationship.
There is ample evidence to support this. As many witnessed at AIEC in 2024, Minister Clare and India’s Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, have developed a genuinely close friendship and productive working relationship over the past four years. During this visit, Minister Clare was accorded the honour of a private dinner at Minister Pradhan’s home,a gesture that speaks volumes about the strength of their rapport. Such personal ties between key ministers should never be underestimated.
A major milestone in recent years has been India’s long-awaited legislation enabling foreign education providers to operate in-country. Minister Pradhan has delivered on this commitment, reducing regulatory barriers, notwithstanding the occasional difference between policy intention and on-the-ground implementation. This shift has encouraged seven Australian public universities to either establish or commit to establishing Indian campuses. Indian authorities noted during the trip that Australia now ranks number one globally for offshore campuses, a point Minister Pradhan proudly highlighted.
Unlike the previous two missions, which focused heavily on higher education, this visit placed equal emphasis on vocational education and the schools sector. To support this, the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, joined Indian counterparts for key Education and Skills Council meetings and conducted VET-focused site visits alongside industry representatives, including ITECA CEO Felix Pirie and TAFE delegates. With India recently approving ten Western Australian schools to deliver the Year 11 and 12 WACE Certificate, it was timely that discussions about future school-sector collaboration were led by Derek Scott, Chair of ACARA and Principal of Haileybury, who also happens to be a former IEAA Board member.
The mission also benefited from the tireless efforts of Assistant Minister for International Education, Julian Hill. Even before the main delegation arrived in Delhi, he had already travelled, with senior Education Department officials, to Hyderabad and Amritsar for large agent meetings and roundtables. According to those present, he did not hesitate to call out the rising number of fraudu-lent academic and financial documents. His frankness was, by all accounts, appreciated.
Another constructive outcome of the mission was the release of the “Shared Pathways to Research Futures” document, the Australia–India Research Collaboration Framework 2026–2030, produced by the Australia-India Institute with longstanding federal support. It was encouraging to see this funding translate into a substantive piece of work.
Importantly, the Department of Home Affairs was not spared scrutiny. In a briefing with senior Delhi-based officers, the delegation made clear that the current visa rejection rates from India are unacceptable for high-quality education providers. Home Affairs officers emphasised that Australia is attracting increasing numbers of non-genuine applicants as a result of policy tightening in other major study destinations. They also noted that rejection rates in southern India sit at approx-imately 10 to 15 per cent.
There were many other sector wins throughout the mission. The Australia–India Employability Dialogue, which I had the privilege of MC’ing on the final day, was a sincere effort to demonstrate that we can deliver on the promise of career-connected education, with strong contributions from Telstra, NAB, ANZ, CBA and others.
However, the personal highlight of the trip was our final visit to the ASHA charitable foundation’s original slum facility. There, we met extraordinarily talented young people who have completed or are undertaking postgraduate study in Australia on full scholarships. At a time when our Group of Eight universities occasionally receive criticism from parts of the sector, it was uplifting to hear students speak so warmly of the support they have received from the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne.
Overall, our bilateral education relationship with India is perhaps in its strongest position ever. It is just unfortunate that we are not issuing enough visas to genuine students to fully realise the tremendous potential on both sides.
Phil Honeywood is the CEO of the International Education Association of Australia.
