E&OE...
Thank you very much Mr Chairman. Vice Minister, Ambassadors, successful participants in the Endeavour Scholarship Program and their very happy parents, family and friends. Today's ceremony underlines the very close educational links between our two societies. Education is important to Japan's future and education is important to Australia's future and the cooperation in so many areas of education activity years into the future that will be promoted by the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding is an illustration of just how much our two societies value a high quality education, not only for our young, but also people who in middle age wish to acquire new skills and new understandings.
Many years ago, just after World War II, Australia set about, through its Colombo Plan to lay the foundations of linking our nation with the other nations of Asia through education and that program in a sense has its modern manifestation in the Australia scholarship program which is worth some $1.5 billion and the Endeavour Program, and there are Japanese recipients of that that I will present today, is an element of that scholarship program which is designed to extend to the nations of our region, the opportunity of studying in Australia, the opportunity to sample the world class universities and other educational institutes of our nation. But most importantly, it extends the hand of friendship to the people of our region.
Japan is our seventh largest source of overseas students. We value that very greatly. The teaching of your country's language in Australia is widespread and eagerly sought after by so many students at our schools and our universities. So I am particularly pleased, as is my wife, to be here today and I acknowledge the presence of the Vice Minister whose late father I worked with very closely when he was Prime Minister of Japan during the time that I have been Prime Minister of Australia. This visit of mine to Japan is an opportunity to reaffirm the very deep friendship we feel for the people of Japan and this morning the particular value we place on the educational links between our two societies.
Thank you.
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