Indian students may be able to access an Australian education from their home country very soon.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare says the government is seeking to expand its higher education sector in South Asia.
He says there is an opportunity for Australian universities to open up campuses in the region, following a relaxing of legislation in India around foreign entities opening offshore campuses.
He told Sky News it's a valuable investment, given the hundreds of millions of young people in India looking to study at universities over the next decade.
"There's Australian universities in India at the moment that run courses embedded in Indian universities, Deakin and Monash and La Trobe are examples of that. This is about the potential to open campuses, so going from running courses to opening campuses. The Indian government has an education plan where they want half of all young Indians to either go to vocational education or higher education by 2035."
University of Wollongong deputy vice-chancellor Alex Frino says it is an exciting opportunity.
"Our ambition is to be in India, on the ground and teaching our first course by September this year. The first courses will be in IT applied to finance, and we know there's a shortage of labour and skills in the IT sector."
He says the university has a growing number of Indian students - and it makes sense to expand abroad.
La Trobe University in Melbourne has already begun work on developing partnerships with universities in India.
The university's deputy vice chancellor [[on international student acquisition]] Stacey Farraway says that work will only progress further.
"We are really keen to develop deep and comprehensive partnerships with our partners over there and really working closely with them to build out that collaboration we have. Beyond the research, building that out in terms of teaching and joint programs that we can deliver to students where they can do some study in India then do some study in Australia - so thinking very creatively."
Dr Farraway says the agreement will also help the Indian government to deliver on its goal of having 50 per cent of young people with a post-school qualification by 2035.
