Title of Paper

'Institutionalising the Dialogue of Faiths and Cultures in Asia'

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A submission to the Victorian Government in Australia, in which some forty signatories advocate that  General Religious Education, which includes indigenous worldviews, secular philosophies and ethics, should be provided for all students.

A series of 10-week and 6-week courses offered each year with the aim of developing  better community understanding of the dynamics of a rapidly globalising world and Australia's place in it. 

Each year the course attracted between 35 and 70 participants, most of them working in education, government, the professions, media,  and religious and community organisations, as well as a number of students.

The Centre for Dialogue was established by La Trobe University in September 2005 and inaugurated on 15 August 2006, at the National Gallery of Victoria, with the strong support of the Victorian Government. At the opening, attended by more than 700 people, Judge Christopher Weeramantry, former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, delivered the inaugural Annual Lecture.