The Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship Awards represent a unique partnership between the Cheung Kong Group and the Australian Government to support educational exchange between undergraduate and postgraduate students in Australia and Asia.
The Cheung Kong Group has a long history of supporting education through international scholarships. As a global company with operations in 54 countries worldwide, the Group fully recognizes the importance of cross-cultural understanding and awareness. The Cheung Kong Group therefore approached the Australian Government with the idea of initiating a scholarship programme to facilitate educational exchange between Australia and Asia. With the support of the Australian Government, the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship Awards were formed, representing the first public-private sponsorship of its kind in Australia. The initiative provides Australian and Asian students with the invaluable opportunity to study abroad and widen their horizons.
The Cheung Kong Group sees great value in the Programme as a channel for nurturing exchange between Australia and Asia and giving students more opportunities to widen their international perspective. An old Chinese proverb that says ¡§Learning has no boundaries¡¨ is the philosophy that lies at the heart of the Awards. The Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Awards present a significant, innovative and extensive opportunity to foster mutual understanding between students in Australia and Asia. Through the Awards, promising students are given the opportunity to break down boundaries and learn about different cultures as part of their studies.
The Awards were announced in June 2004 and was originally envisaged to be a three-year initiative, offering educational exchange opportunities via the Endeavour Cheung Kong Student Exchange Programme to 100 undergraduate students and via the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Research Fellowships to 40 postgraduate students each year. Half of the scholarships were designated for Australian students going to Asia and half for Asian students going to Australia, with 2/3 of these awards earmarked for Hong Kong and Mainland China. Since the launch of the Programme, we have received very enthusiastic feedback from the educational communities in Australia and Asia.
In 2006, the Cheung Kong Group and the Australian Government agreed to extend the duration of the Awards to five years. To support more exchanges and to meet the incredible demand for such opportunities, the funds were re-allocated to support 200 undergraduate exchanges and 20 postgraduate scholarships each year. The total A$7.5 million in matching funding from the Cheung Kong Group and Australia Government have supported the participation of nearly 1,000 students in educational exchange opportunities over the course of five years.
Since their inception, the Awards have quickly earned a reputation for being a
prestigious and popular scholarship programme. Given the success of the Awards, the
Australian Government and the Cheung Kong Group will extend the duration of the
scholarship for ten more years and have pledged to contribute a total of A$15 million
to support the programme. For the next ten years, the Awards will fund about 1,300
incoming Asian undergraduate and postgraduate students to Australia and about 1,300
outgoing Australian students to Asia.
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