$37m push for overseas study

TERTIARY Education Minister signals opportunity for students to build lifelong professional networks and friendships.

THE government will offer grants and loans to encourage more than 10,000 young Australians to take up study opportunities in Asia, Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans says.

Senator Evans today will announce a $37 million AsiaBound Grants Program, together with a more generous OS-HELP loan system, to meet a promise of the Asian Century white paper.

"This is a program to give Australian students the opportunity to build lifelong professional networks and friendships," he said in a statement.

Each year, 3400 university students would be offered a $2000 grant for short-term study in Asia for up to six months.

There would be 500 places, each with a $5000 grant, for university students to do semester-long exchanges, and 500 places with a $2000 grant for vocational education students. Students could take up a variety of study options in the region, including clinical placements, and would not be limited to universities in Asia.

About 3000 Australian university students a year already choose to do some study in Asia but the US and Europe have been more popular destinations, according to the International Education Advisory Council.

Today's Asia study grants program represented about $30m in new money over three years, Senator Evans' office said. The Asia element of an existing, much smaller program to encourage study abroad will be wound up.

Rob Malicki, an expert on study abroad, said the new measure sounded "huge". "Universities themselves put about $20m in (in annual grants for travel study), the government puts in about $6m -- so if you're pouring in $30m in new money over three years, that's a big splash," he said.

University of Sydney student Sinead Maguire, who has recently returned from a semester in Indonesia, said she "had to work really hard personally" to save for her trip because there are few Asia scholarships available.

Under the OS-HELP scheme, which allows students to finance study travel, the maximum loan amount would rise by $1250 to $7500 in 2014, Senator Evans said.

The scheme would be opened to postgraduate students whose university places are subsidised by the federal government.

The cost would depend on how many students took up the more generous loans, and the government had set aside savings from this month's mini-budget, Senator Evans's office said.

There would also be loans for students wanting to take Asian language courses before their trips.

Murdoch University's professor of South-East Asian studies David Hill said this would broaden the appeal of in-country study beyond the familiar students of a given language and culture.

Programs allowing students to take a range of disciplines in Asia -- health, medicine or law, for example -- would benefit.