With the twin objectives of promoting awareness of the potential of the
Indian market amongst Australian business people and promoting Indian
awareness of trade and investment opportunities in Australia, the Council
supported activities aimed at making bilateral trade opportunities better
known and understood in both countries.

The Council-funded Australia-India Business Exchange Program seeks to
provide young Indian and Australian business executives with first-hand
knowledge and experience of each country's business, economic and social
environment and technological infrastructure, and to develop bilateral
business contact. The second exchange visit under the program took place
during 1998-99 when Ms Jemma Dacre, of the Perth company Textiles for Nomads,
worked in India as part of a collaborative textile industry project to assist
the development of interior furnishing and upholstery textiles. Ms Dacre's
visit brought together Australian wool production and design capabilities with
Indian manufacturing expertise and pointed the way to further areas for
collaboration between the Australian and Indian textile industries.

The Council agreed during 1998-99 to provide funding to the Australia-India
Business Council for a third series of business exchanges, to take place in
1999-2000.

Australian schoolteachers visiting India as part of a Council-funded Australia-India teacher exchange program explore the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri.

Education

The objective of the Council's education program is to raise the level
of knowledge of India, and of Australia's relations with India, at the primary
and secondary levels in Australian schools.

To further encourage the study of India in Australian schools, the Council
agreed to provide funding to the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) for the
1998-99 Australia-India teacher exchange program, part of a series of such
programs designed to give Australian teachers and educational administrators a
working familiarity with India.

An important innovation of the 1998-99 AEF exchange was that as well as a
visit to India by eighteen Australian teachers the project included a visit to
Australia by six Indian teachers. Both visits were successful in fostering
greater mutual understanding in the two countries' school systems.

Also under the education program, the Council provided funding to La Trobe
University for the development of a Year 12 Hindi syllabus for Australian
schools, following on from the earlier development, with AIC funding
assistance, of a Year 11 Hindi syllabus.