Two Charles Sturt University asthma education students will be awarded $6000 in scholarship funding at the 1999 Australian Asthma Conference in Darwin today.

Barbara Henderson from South Australia and Anne-Maree Davis of Sydney's Westmead hospital will receive $3000 each from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to further their specialist knowledge as asthma educators.

Their CSU course co-ordinator Debbie Burton said: "This University's asthma education program is the only course to provide formal tertiary qualifications in asthma education."

"Now that the Federal Government has identified asthma as the sixth national health priority, recognising the need to improve asthma management, we hope to see an influx of students wishing to advance their specialist training in this field."

Ms Davis is asthma educator at the New Children's Hospital, Westmead, and Ms Henderson was instrumental in establishing the Port Pirie Asthma Clinic - a new model of asthma education that works in conjunction with general practice.

Jane Cox, from AstraZeneca's respiratory products division, said: "This is the second year that AstraZeneca has awarded the scholarships to CSU students enrolled in this program."

"With a shortage of specially trained full-time asthma educators in Australia, especially in rural areas, this is our way of encouraging nursing and other health discipline students to select respiratory education as their chosen speciality," she said.

"We are delighted to provide assistance to Barbara and Anne-Maree, who are both highly regarded in their respective States for their contributions and efforts toward asthma education."

Ms Davis will be one of the first two students to complete all three stages of the CSU Graduate Certificate in Asthma Education course program. She was a founding member of the Asthma Educators Association of NSW when the National Asthma Campaign was being developed, and was on the committee that first approached CSU to establish the asthma education course.