Headquartered in Hong Kong, the Cheung Kong Group has businesses in 57 countries and has invested A$12 billion in Australia in the areas of energy, telecommunications, transport, port, and bio-technology.
While the Cheung Kong Group has a history of supporting education through international scholarships, the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship Program represents a unique partnership with the Australian Government to support both undergraduate and postgraduate students from Australia and Asia to study in each other’s home environments.
The Australian Government and the Cheung Kong Group will each contribute A$3.75 million over the five year period, from 2004/05. The A$7.5 million in funding will support the participation of up to 856 undergraduate students in institution-to-institution student exchanges and fund up to 132 postgraduate/post doctoral fellowships. Further information on the fellowships can be found on the Endeavour Awards webpage. These awards are split evenly with half being available to Australians proceeding to study in Asia and half to Asian scholars studying in Australia.
The Endeavour Cheung Kong Student Exchange Program has been operating for four funding rounds. In the 2009 round, the Program will provide A$1 million to fund student mobility subsidies for 100 incoming undergraduate exchange students from eligible Asian countries and administrative regions and a matching 100 outgoing undergraduate Australian students to study in these same Asian countries and administrative regions.
Supported students are required to study full-time and for at least one semester and a maximum of two semesters in a counterpart institution under institution-to-institution student exchange arrangements.
Two-thirds of the student mobility subsidies awarded each year are allocated to student exchanges involving links with counterpart institutions in mainland China and Hong Kong SAR and the remaining one-third to those involving links with counterpart institutions in other eligible Asian countries, including: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Eligible student exchanges include provision for tuition fee waiver and credit transfer. Australian higher education institutions receive A$5,000 (excluding GST) per exchange student to subsidise the cost of that student’s participation in an eligible student exchange.
Under the Program, successful institutions are required to enter into funding contracts with DEEWR and fulfil standard reporting requirements under these contracts.
For funding provided in the 2008 and any subsequent funding rounds, successful institutions will be required to enter data on the DEEWR Endeavour Student Exchanges Online (ESEO) system to meet the reporting requirement and acquit the funding provided.
For funding provided in 2007 and earlier funding rounds, a Completion Report proforma, a proforma for reporting details of students who received a student subsidy and a statutory declaration proforma are available for download to assist successful institutions meet the reporting requirements under the contracts.