KUCHING - The Sarawak government is now offering scholarships to deserving Australian students on a Reverse Colombo Plan (RCP) as an appreciation to the Australian government for providing scholarships to deserving Malaysian students in the past under the Colombo Plan.

For a start, two Australian students had been selected to study here for six months at Swinburne Sarawak Institute of Technology, Agriculture and Food Industries Minister Dato Sri Haji Adenan Haji Satem dis' dosed yesterday.

"This is a small gesture from the State government to appreciate Australia's role in training thousands of Malaysians including hundreds of Sarawakians under the Colombo Plan," Adenan told at a press conference held at Swinburne Sarawak Institute of Technology here.

He added that under the RCP, more students from Australia would be
invited to study here in the cure.

"This RCP is an ongoing exercise. So we will continue with it CP) because we have sufficient funds for it," Adenan said.

The Honorary Consul for Australia at Kuching, Datuk Philip Ting disclosed that the Colombo Plan was started in 1951 for students from poor developing countries in the Commonwealth.

After Malaysia had "graduated" from Colombo Plan, it stopped accepting the Colombo Plan scholarships for its students in the 1980's,Ting said.

He added that RCP was introduced to expose Australian students to life in a multi-racial country like Malaysia.

"While studying in Kuching, the two Australian students will have the chance to stay with families from different racial background so that they could have a varied experience of the multi-racial lifestyles in the country," he said.

Ting disclosed that many present State leaders had benefited from the Colombo Plan.

"Among them were our present Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr George Chan , Minister of Agriculture and Food Industries Dato Sri Haji Adenan Satem, Minister of Infrastructure Development and Communications Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh and many others," added Ting.

Meanwhile, the two Australian students who were given the honour to become the first batch of students to further their studies here under the RCP are Holly Nation, 21 and Andrew Maguire, 19.

Also present at the press conference were director of Yayasan Sarawak Datu Abdul Rashid Haji Aziz, chief executive officer of Swinburne Sarawak Institute of Technology Mohd. Abdul Rahman and director of Forestry Datu Cheong Ek Choon.