Established in 2004, International Education Group (IEG) North America works closely with American and Canadian government agencies, peak bodies, think tanks, foundations and other organisations to enhance Australia’s bilateral education relationship with both countries.

IEG North America promotes Australia as a source of high quality education, both with regards to its education system and its education reform policies in early childhood, school, vocational and higher education.

Given the similarity in education policy challenges faced by Australia and North America, our core objectives are to:

• promote government to government dialogue as a means to share best practices and lessons learnt for future policy development
  
  
• monitor and analyse education policy and regulatory developments in Canada and the United States across all levels of education.

Recent activities have included:

• facilitating the signing of a bilateral education agreement between the Australian and US governments in 2009. In follow up to the agreement, the US Department of Education visited Australia for a high-level policy forum on school education reform in 2010
  
  
• facilitating policy exchanges between Australia and North America in areas such as higher education internationalisation, indigenous education and school accountability
  
  
• providing opportunities for Canadian and Australian higher education institutions to discuss strategies for collaboration
  
  
• researching and analysing key education policy issues, for example, the effect of the current economic climate on internationalisation strategies at higher education institutions in the United States
  
  
• participating in negotiated rulemaking with the US Department of Education regarding the effect of US postsecondary financial aid regulations on Australian universities.