Colombo trial won't affect other travel

THE advent of the government's New Colombo Plan is not expected to interfere with existing study abroad arrangements for next year.

THE advent of the government's New Colombo Plan is not expected to interfere with existing study abroad arrangements for next year.

"It is not intended to put 2014 arrangements for other student mobility programs on hold while New Colombo is developed through the pilot phase," Education Minister Christopher Pyne said yesterday.

"It is intended that the New Colombo Plan trials (to start in mid-2014) will be in addition to existing student mobility arrangements, with any modifications that may be required as details of the trials are developed," he said.

The "world class" study abroad website for students, launched on Monday as part of a government and university campaign, features the New Colombo Plan.

Links from the site also lead to Labor's AsiaBound study abroad scheme and two other pre-Colombo programs, the Short Term Mobility Program and the International Student Exchange Program.

After it announced AsiaBound and more generous OS-HELP loans last year, the previous government quietly cut funding for STMP and ISEP.

Universities are waiting for news of 2014 funding under these two programs.

A promised review of existing federal programs for study abroad has begun.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said it was possible that in the longer term New Colombo would become the "umbrella" for existing federal programs that send Australian undergraduates for study abroad in the Asia-Pacific. Postgraduate study abroad, and travel to destinations not in the region, would be unaffected.

Nor would immediate arrangements be disturbed - "if somebody's got an AsiaBound scholarship, and they're going - that will happen," she said.

The first round of AsiaBound, which closed for applications in May, was oversubscribed.