Community & Business
16 December, 2021
Pittsworth man awarded prestigious scholarship
Past Pittsworth State High School student Dean McCarthy has been named a recipient of the 2022 New Colombo Plan Scholarship - a prestigious nation-wide award given to a select number of hard-working Australian university students who are achieving big things.
The New Colombo Plan, which is open to Australian undergraduates studying at Australian universities, is a signature initiative of the Australian Government which aims to lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to study and undertake internships in the region.
It encourages a two-way flow of students between Australia and the rest of our region, complementing the thousands of students from the region coming to Australia to study each year.
With only a small number of students hand-picked each year, being selected as a 2022 recipient is something worth celebrating for Dean McCarthy.
Now studying at Griffith University, Dean is a proud Mithaka man completing a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal
Justice.
Receiving this scholar-ship means Dean will travel to Fiji to understand more about community policing programs, like the country’s Duavata Community Policing model, and how they could be used to reduce rates of Indigenous people in custody.
Being awarded this scholarship is a fantastic achievement on its own, but to top it off Dean has also been named the 2022 New Colombo Plan Indigenous Fellow.
The New Colombo Plan is intended to be transformational, deepening Australia’s relationships in the region, both at the individual level and through expanding university, business and other links.
The Australian Govern-ment wants study and work-based experiences in the Indo-Pacific to become a rite of passage for young Australian undergraduate students.
In 2014, the New Colombo Plan began as a pilot supporting 40 scholars and more than 1300 mobility students to study and undertake work placements across four pilot locations – Indonesia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.
The Plan is now supporting students to study and undertake internships in 40 locations across the Indo-Pacific from South Asia in the west to Mongolia in the north, and the Cook Islands in the east.
Open to all Australian undergraduates across Australia, the New Colombo Plan supports around 10,000 students a year, who represent the diversity of the Australian community.
This growing cohort of scholars and mobility students are all eligible to be part of the New Colombo Plan Alumni Program, which supports alumni to maintain a connection to each other, the New Colombo Plan and the Indo-Pacific region as they progress in their lives and careers.
Over time the growing cohort of New Colombo Plan alumni will play an increasingly important role in Australia’s relationships with its neighbours to become an influential and diverse network of Australians with direct experience in the Indo-Pacific, strong professional and personal networks across our region, and a driving force in Australia’s future prosperity.
These long-term, ongoing aspects of the scholarship means its a fantastic program to be involved in and an outstanding achievement to be selected.
Congratulations Dean!
