News

New exchanges for HKU and University of Melbourne

Media Release, Tuesday 10 May 2005

A University of Melbourne Arts student and a Law student from U21 partner institution, Hong Kong University, are the first to benefit from a new reciprocal scholarship exchange scheme to encourage student mobility between Australian and selected Asian universities.

The students have been awarded Cheung Kong Student Exchange Scholarships under the program, which is jointly funded by the Australian Government and the Cheung Kong group of companies in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong University student, Pan Wing Tat, is studying at the Melbourne Law School this semester and Melbourne student, Francis Meehan, will study at Hong Kong University in Semester Two.

The scholarships initiative will provide funding of $500,000 over the next three financial years for a number of reciprocal student exchanges between Australia and selected Asian countries and administrative regions.

Each student will receive $5000 to be used towards the cost of their exchange at a partner institution – considerably more than is available through most other mobility scholarships.

According to University of Melbourne International Relations Officer Dr Susanne Haywood, the concept is novel in that the exchanges have to be absolutely reciprocal. “This requires a good measure of cooperation between partner institutions,” she says.

“In the first (2005) round the University of Melbourne has received funding for three reciprocal exchanges – two with China and one with Thailand. The Hong Kong–Melbourne exchange is the first of these to be finalised.”

Scholarships are allocated to Melbourne students by the Melbourne Abroad Office on the basis of academic merit.