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  • Student visas & Sri Lanka

    Currently these applications are processed in the INZ Bangkok Area Office. From 27 January 2014 the INZ Mumbai Area Office will process all student visa applications lodged in Sri Lanka.

    Visa applications will continue to be submitted to the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. However, once applications are processed in India there will no longer be an option to pay by credit card. All visa application fees must be paid in $USD Bank Drafts made out to “Immigration New Zealand”.

    The VAC service fee remains unchanged and can be paid in cash, bank draft or bank transfer.

    Applications from Sri Lanka lodged before 27 January 2014 will continue to be processed at the INZ Bangkok Area Office and can be paid for by credit card. 

    For further information, please refer to updates on the INZ website here. 

    General inquiries from Sri Lanka can be directed to: Mumbaifeedback@mbie.govt.nz or NewDelhifeedback@mbie.govt.nz. 

  • Brazilian bloggers to report the Dunedin study experience

    While Caio Komatsu (25) from Sao Paulo studies Outdoor Adventure Leadership at Otago Polytechnic, and Luana Mazotti (24) also from Sao Paulo studies English at the University of Otago Language Centre, they will also both produce video diaries and blogs offering insights into local lifestyle, culture and attractions. 

    Together the influential bloggers reach almost five million people through their popular culture blogs Fail Wars and Puro Veneno. They’ve been brought to New Zealand following successful similar social media campaigns into the Brazilian market, also featuring bloggers. The cooperative venture between Education New Zealand and the two Dunedin institutions is again supported by education social media consultancy Conversa.

    ENZ General Manager, Marketing and Channel Development, Kathryn McCarrison says the pair will make excellent ambassadors for New Zealand’s international education programme. "It’s great to be able to use the networks and social media skills of admired and connected social media personalities like Caio and Luana. This is an innovative approach that we hope to roll out and replicate in other target markets across the world."

    The blogging pair will also provide advice on ways to better engage with Brazilian youth. 

  • New penguins arrive in New Zealand

    They are the third group of scholarship students sent to New Zealand by the Chilean Government since the "Penguins Without Borders" programme was expanded from 40 to up to 100 students during the Prime Minister's trade mission to Chile last March.

    The students, known as penguins due to Chile’s distinctive black and white school uniform, are here to expand their international outlook. The breadth of study options and experiences here are a major drawcard.

    Regional Director for Latin America, Lisa Futschek, says 140 Chilean students have experienced New Zealand’s world-class education system through the programme to date. In a new development with this cohort, Education New Zealand (ENZ) negotiated the inclusion of single sex schools and private schools in the programme for the first time.

    "Feedback from the students themselves, their families and Chilean officials has been really positive. There will be a new administration in power in Chile in March, and ENZ is working hard to secure New Zealand as a continuing destination for these students." 

    ENZ's work in Chile has already generated media coverage there about New Zealand education and the penguins programme, including stories in key publications including regional El Mercurio newspapers and national TV stations Canal 13 and CNN Chile. 

    Business Development Manager Richard Kyle says the wide range of course options for students in New Zealand has engaged both the Chilean students and the media.

    "It really is a distinctive strength of our schools that we can meet individual learning needs and interests by offering such a diverse curriculum and extra-curricular activities. It’s one of the first things past penguins talk about and it’s something that’s piqued Chilean media interest when they’re reporting on what these students will see and do."

    To watch an interview (in Spanish) with New Zealand Ambassador John Capper about the penguins, go to: www.cnnchile.com/noticia/2014/01/24/escolares-chilenos-estudiaran-un-semestre-en-nueva-zelandia.

  • Schools: roadmap workshop summary

    Download the school sector summary paper.

    ENZ is facilitating the Strategic Roadmap programme to help each sector, and New Zealand’s international education industry overall, to outline what success will look like in the future and develop a plan to get there.

    Everyone, regardless of whether you attended the workshop, is invited and encouraged to read the summary document and send comments, questions or ideas to Greg Scott, Project Manager for the school sector.

    Greg, who has been seconded from Middleton Grange School for this project, says the workshops were designed as the first of many opportunities for schools to provide input into the Strategic Roadmap process.

    “During the workshops, participants reported a wide range of motivations for and benefits from enrolling international students. An exciting array of ideas emerged of what might be possible by 2025 – our roadmap destination – and the workshops demonstrated that our sector has the vision and ideas required to make a significant difference in the next 10 years.”

    Greg says he was particularly impressed by the high level of creative thought: “The ideas put forward by the participants are well worth reading and reflecting on.” 

    Advisory Groups have been formed for each sector to provide advice and feedback to Project Managers and the sector roadmap development team during the roadmap process.  These groups are tasked with representing the views of the sector throughout the process, and will also act as a communications conduit between their sector and project managers.

  • NZ education front page in India

    The story, an interview with Education New Zealand’s South Asia Regional Director, Ziena Jalil, was the result of a nationwide awareness-raising mission currently running in India. This includes joint media briefings with ENZ and Immigration New Zealand, and Indian news and education journalists visiting New Zealand. 

    The media work promotes New Zealand as a study destination and education business partner to influential Indian media that are widely followed by prospective Indian students and their parents. 

    Early results are pleasing, with extensive coverage highlighting the benefits of study in New Zealand. The media work has included regular feeding of stories, and two joint media briefings with Immigration New Zealand in New Delhi and Mumbai. More briefings are planned, covering the country from Chandigarh to Kochi.

    The combined approach with INZ has been a particularly successful feature of the mission, Ziena says. It is the first time the two agencies have fronted media together, and the effectiveness of the collaboration suggests it may be useful in other target markets. 

    “The media are also very interested to find out more about immigration related issues so it is great to have Nathanael Mackay, INZ Area Manager, to answer questions about visa processing times and work rights associated with student visas,” she says.

    “More than 11,000 students from India are currently studying in New Zealand, making India one of the fastest growing student markets for New Zealand. Our media work is a great way to raise awareness of the growing Indian presence in New Zealand as well as the business and education partnerships which are underway and in the pipeline.”

    February has been a busy month for Indian media in New Zealand too, with two specialist Indian education writers visiting.  

    Malini Sen, the editor of the Education Times (part of The Times of India), spent five days in early February meeting Indian students in New Zealand and touring universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics throughout the country. One student she talked to was Kevin D’Souza, a former advertising executive from Mumbai. Kevin enrolled in the MBA programme at the Auckland University of Technology after deciding he wanted to "skill up" while "spending more time with my family and enjoying the slower pace of life in New Zealand".  

    On 24 February the editor of Education Plus (the education supplement of The Hindu) arrives for a week’s visit. The Hindu is considered the most influential paper in India, with particularly strong coverage in south India. Archana Subramanium’s focus will be on the niche courses New Zealand has to offer, such as marine biology and geology. 

    Having journalists on the ground can provide surprising insight. A chat with border security staff at Auckland airport revealed a need for arriving students to have more information about the presence of Indian speciality food stores here, saving a lot of food confiscation in customs. Malini Sen promised to confirm to her Education Times readers that Indian foods are widely available in the multi-cultural country that is New Zealand. 

  • Growth Fund applications open

    The IEGF aims to support innovative projects that go beyond ‘business as usual’ – for instance this funding can help accelerate your market expansion plans, develop offshore partnerships or build a new product or channel to market. 

    There has been some fine-tuning of criteria and the selection process, based on feedback from earlier rounds. ENZ Business Development Manager, Adele Bryant, says the new form is designed to guide applicants easily through the process, and in particular help you explain how a project will meet key selection criteria -- including level of innovation, expected commercial return, scalability, value for money and extent of collaboration both on and offshore. 

    Success so far

    Since the fund was piloted in April 2013, 41 projects and 31 institutions and education exporters have received ‘matched project funding’ of between $10,000 and $50,000.  

    Some good results have been achieved already from projects funded in that first April 2013 round.   Wellington-based company Software Education has launched five new courses in Singapore and signed six new partnerships with US organisations, while Kiwa Digital, of Auckland, has used its funding to close international contracts valued at $386,000.

    Victoria University of Wellington used IEGF funding to develop a niche marketing campaign for its high value, postgraduate law programme in Germany and Southeast Asia. The university says without IEGF funding it would have taken longer for the university to gain the market penetration it wanted in Singapore, Thailand and Germany.  The results are an 18% increase in offers of places over 2013 and new relationships with institutions that will help feed the student pipeline into the future.

    Online Education, a start-up company based in Hamilton has developed Code Avengers to teach computer programming.  The product can be used in classroom settings around the world as well as in the potentially huge US home school market.  While still in the development phase the company has used its IEGF funds to “accelerate the speed of many tasks from promotion to IP protection to product development”.  While revenue is small it is growing quickly with an 800% increase over the last year, of which some 80% comes from export sales. The company is now having the product translated into Spanish and Dutch and is in negotiation with overseas distributors as it moves quickly to capitalise on its improved international profile. 

  • International education top priority – Tertiary Education Strategy 2014-19

    Speaking at the Tertiary Education Strategy launch at the Higher Education Summit in Auckland, Mr Joyce said the new Strategy is about achieving faster progress with some of the key challenges facing New Zealand learners in the 21st century.

    “Our tertiary education sector must continue to adapt and change to provide the skills and qualifications New Zealanders will need to contribute in the labour market in innovative and competitive ways,” Mr Joyce said.

    The Tertiary Education Strategy 2014-19 sets out six strategic priorities designed to encourage a more adaptable outward-facing New Zealand tertiary education system that makes the most of strong links with businesses, communities and the world economy. They are:

    • Priority 1: Delivering skills for industry

    • Priority 2: Getting at-risk young people into a career

    • Priority 3: Boosting achievement of Māori and Pasifika

    • Priority 4: Improving adult literacy and numeracy

    • Priority 5: Strengthening research-based institutions

    • Priority 6: Growing international linkages.

    For the full text of Mr Joyce’s speech see the Beehive website. 

    The Strategy is available on the Ministry of Education website. 

  • Great ideas from schools

    The ENZ Schools’ Reference Group was set up last year as a way to collect school feedback and ideas about how the sector can best develop. 

    ENZ Business Development Manager Mary Camp says the latest meeting on 25 February generated a swag of suggestions for the professional development workshops held in the lead-up to the New Zealand International Education Conference (NZIEC). More are welcome…

    “This reference group is really benefitting our work to support the industry,” Mary says. 

    “Given there are so many schools, spread from one end of the country to the other, and with so much variety of character and programme, it can be hard for us to be sure we’re hearing what we need to hear from schools.”

    “It’s great now to have an official channel open for that conversation, as well as the other connections we have through regional clusters and the like. We’ve been able to design services and products to suit schools’ current needs, and schools’ feedback on other parts of Education New Zealand’s work has been hugely valuable.”

    Mary says the pre-conference workshops in 2013 (on business planning, social media and working with agents) were well attended and rated highly by participants. The aim is to keep relevance high for this year’s NZIEC –  held in Wellington on 21-22 August 2014. 

    Additions to this ‘working topic list’ from the Schools’ Reference Group meeting are welcome:

    • Collaboration – looking at different collaborative business models, eg regional, niche

    • Homestay systems/ processes, building your homestay community, sharing ideas

    • Alumni – using them effectively

    • Agent perspectives – what are they looking for? (panel)

    • Market analysis – including hard stats, competitor analysis, and recommended key markets for schools.

    To make a suggestion for workshop topics please contact one of ENZ’s Business Development Managers for the school sector, Richard.Kyle@enz.govt.nz or Mary.Camp@enz.govt.nz. 

  • Growth in the outdoors

    The Outdoor Education New Zealand (ODENZ) cluster has been working since 2002 to develop this niche, and enrolments are rising from northern Europe. 

    ODENZ chief executive Ian Reedy says the participating schools from across the country are united by two things: passion for the outdoors, and awareness that joint marketing efforts are the way to go. 

    ODENZ is growing the international outdoor education business through a concerted multi-year campaign, with support funding from Education New Zealand. The aim is to end up a self-sustaining organisation with a regular ‘in-market’ presence in northern Europe.

    In 2012 there were 184 international students recruited to outdoor ed programmes at participating schools. Figures for Term 1 2014 show an encouraging trend, with 20 percent growth against the same time in 2013. This year they come from Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg.

    The aims for 2014 and 2015 are to increase the number of schools in the cluster, and to increase the numbers of students on the ground – or the water, or high on the rockface…

    ODENZ is one of several clusters supported by Education New Zealand. Others include independent schools, faith schools and regional groupings. Email us for more information about our support for clusters.

    For information on the outdoor cluster, email info@outdoorednz.co.nz or see www.outdooreducation.co.nz.

  • Digital win in Dubai for NZ educational product

    On 6 March, Kiwa Digital was named the winner in the Best Free ICT/App Product category at the Gulf Educational Supplier & Solutions (GESS) Exhibition in Dubai. The award was for Kiwa’s highly successful multi-lingual digital version of Milly, Molly and the Bike Ride. 

    GESS is the leading educational trade show in the Middle East, attracting 300 exhibitors from 60 countries, and featuring the latest in educational information and communications (ICT) technologies. 

    Kiwa Digital’s CEO, Rhonda Kite, is thrilled with an award from the “most exciting educational market in the world”.

    “We are very proud to have been recognised by some of the most respected names in the education sector as providing a solution that serves education needs throughout the Gulf.”

    Kiwa Digital’s work on expanding its global markets has been supported by an International Education Growth Fund grant and Education New Zealand market access support for education publishers. This is to take advantage of the remarkable innovation that technology is bringing to the education sector.

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