At a meeting at Monash University’s city campus in Melbourne, leaders from each organisation pledged to “increase the communication between educational institutes and schools” to boost academic exchange and student mobility.

Headquartered in Beijing, CEAIE is a not-for-profit organisation seeking to promote major people-to-people dialogue and exchange between the population in China and the rest of the world.

As China is the largest source country for international education in Australia, the partners will work together to support school, vocational and higher education sectors, IEAA vice president, Ren Yi, told The PIE.

IEAA chief executive officer Phil Honeywood and CEAIE deputy general secretary Xiao Lei signed the memorandum at Monash University’s city campus in Melbourne, while Yi met with Lei in Brisbane, together with CEAIE president Liu Limin and other notable stakeholders.

IEAA, Australia’s not-for-profit peak body for the international education community, is celebrating its 20-year anniversary in 2024.

CEAIE was founded in 1981, with the aim to develop exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese educational community and other parts of the globe.

The organisation in China has previously also worked with the British Council in the UK to facilitate exchange visits between 200 schools in the two countries.

Together, the partners have also worked on a joint-institute alliance, which had 22 UK and Chinese founding member institutes when it was established in 2017.

In 2018, the CEAIE-Study Melbourne Language and Internship Program in China opened, which was jointly launched by CEAIE and Victoria Government of Australia, while Universities Australia also sought to increase exchanges with the organisation in 2017.