‘Advance To Australia’ winners announced

Jamshedpur, 25^thMarch, 2016: Students from schools in Jaipur, Jamshedpur and Chennai have won the chance to travel to Australia to see the universities there firsthand. Organised by The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), and Cambridge English Language Assessment (part of the University of Cambridge), the competition titled “A2Oz – Advance to Australia”saw students produce short films outlining how they would solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Over 380 schools across India participated in the competition. Videos were developed by students around the topics of social entrepreneurship, creative animation, robotics and marine sciences.

Ayushi Ghosh and Shankhadeep Roy – students from Carmel Junior College,Jamshedpurwere the winners for the theme of Robotics and have won an all expenses paid 5 day study programme in Curtin University, Australia.

The other winners of the competition were:

• Seedling Public School, Jaipur for the theme of Social Entrepreneurship
• Vaels International School, Chennai for the theme of Marine Sciences
• Vaels International School, Chennai for the theme of Creative Animation.

Students along with teachers from the winning schools will travel to Australia to participate in an all-expenses paid study programme in Bond University, Curtin University, Charles Darwin University and James Cook University between May – June 2016.

Speaking about the competition, Nicola Watkinson, Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner – South Asia, Australian Trade Commission said, “Australia is home to leading education institutions with7 Australian universities listed amongst the top 100 universities in the world according tothe QS World University rankings.”

“Australian institutions lead in many disciplines which are targeting emerging careers such as digital merchandising, robotics, animation, big data analytics, avionics, additive manufacturing, sports medicine and rehabilitation sciences to name a few. An objective of the A2OZ competition is to expose Indian students to these emerging career options.The study tour to Australia for the winning schools will broaden their horizons and give them new study options to consider”, said Nicola Watkinson.

Angela ffrench, Director of Operations – South Asia of Cambridge English Language Assessment said, “Following the success of last year’s competition, we have been overwhelmed by this year’s response. The four topics have brought out a wealth of creative ideas and approaches, and it is fabulous to see these presented in the international language of communication. We look forward to hearing from the deserving winners when they return from their prize-winning trips to Australia.”

The competition was sponsored by Australian Universities, Bond University, Curtin University, Charles Darwin University, James Cook University, National Australian Bank and Credila. SAE Institute was the knowledge partner for the competition and had a lot of fun teaching the students skills in media production.More information on the competition and on the videos developed by the schools are available at http://www.a2oz.org/