Letter from the CE: Rolling out the welcome mat for students

At ENZ, we’re in planning mode for the year ahead, which involves finishing up projects such as our partnership with Mortal Engines. Our digital and PR campaign for the film, which features New Zealand and international graduates who worked on the Hollywood film, launched in early January. Impressively, the campaign video assets reached more than three million people in the first week alone. This is a promising start, and we expect to see continued interest as we promote New Zealand as a great place to study the creative arts. 

At this time of year, student support is top of mind with the arrival of new international students, who will feel excited and anxious about life in their new home-away-from-home. 

New Zealand’s place in the world means that Kiwis intrinsically understand the importance of forming and maintaining global skills and connections, and the leap of faith this often involves.  

We each have a responsibility to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves, to wrap a warm welcome around students embarking on a New Zealand education experience – to embody manaakitanga.  

Offering a helping hand at key points of the student journey and making personal connections will go a long way in ensuring a student’s time in New Zealand is positive and empowering.  

We all have a role to play here.  

At ENZ, we’re on a journey ourselves to ensure an excellent student experience is a cornerstone of our work. Student experience is a focus of the International Education Strategy, co-developed with the Ministry of Education, and we have put in place some clear plans for delivering and measuring our progress in this area. We are working on some exciting developments to benefit students and providers. You will hear more from us on this soon.  

As we know, international education can help prepare the next generation of students to meet the demands and challenges of an increasingly globalised world.  

For this reason, we should be thinking about how we can ensure domestic students are making the most of opportunities at hand too. The next round of PMSA/LA applications will open shortly, and I urge all tertiary students to consider an international experience.  

I look forward to hearing about all these success stories in the coming year and seeing how international education benefits New Zealanders and New Zealand communities. For further insights into the benefits of international education for New Zealand, I encourage you to download Beyond the Economic, a 2018 report commissioned and published by ENZ which has been an extremely popular resource.  It is filled with case studies of Kiwis who have experienced first-hand how international education enriches lives.  

Each of those stories begins here, at the start of the school year and the first welcome to international students.  

Grant McPherson 

Chief Executive, Education New Zealand