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Industry leaders gather for NZTech
The NZTech Advance Education Technology Summit, sponsored in part by ENZ, is an annual event designed to build New Zealand’s credentials as a hub of education technology. Last week at Massey University, it did just that.
Annabel Robertson, ENZ’s Business Development Manager, said common themes of creativity, collaboration, customer design and innovation emerged during the conference.
“The keynote speakers radiated optimism, and shared ideas on how to engage and prepare learners for the future,” said Annabel.
“The whole atmosphere was buoyant.”
Over two days, companies such as Banqer, Cognition Education, Code Avengers, DAQRI, Google, GlobalEd, Hapara, LearnCoach, Linewize and Wendy Pye Publishing shared their experiences, and explained how they are turning their ideas into viable global products and services.
Start-ups such as Accounting Pod, Savvy and ImmerseMe pitched to the diverse audience made up of e-learning facilitators, STEM leaders, policy makers, principals and teachers, exporters, investors and the interested public.
Annabel said Sue Suckling, Chair of NZQA, concluded the summit with a powerful challenge to New Zealanders to prepare now for the future education system.
“She encouraged educators and technologists to instigate change and not constrain their thinking to the existing regulatory framework,” said Annabel.
New Zealand's highly regarded education services and products offshore contributed $242 million to GDP in 2015 – with huge potential for growth in the education technology sector.
As part of the Leadership Statement for International Education, the Government set the goal of increasing its value to at least $500 million by 2025.
This was ENZ’s fifth year sponsoring the Ed Tech for Export stream of the conference.
Connecting with industry (2017)
The 2017 Connect roadshow attracted 250 participants in eight sessions and offered an opportunity for ENZ to update participants on what’s happening globally and nationally in international education, to share ENZ’s strategic direction for the coming year and to receive feedback from industry.
Greg said ENZ currently has four strategic priorities: leading international education in thinking and implementation, telling our stories in New Zealand, driving more value to New Zealand through student mobility and supporting offshore delivery for value to New Zealand.
“In these sessions we were able to share with industry what we have done and what we plan to do to meet these goals,” said Greg.
“We then heard directly from providers about what ENZ initiatives they value the most, and how we could better help them.”
Better market intelligence was a common theme in feedback from attendees. There was therefore a positive response to the news that, in August, ENZ will launch Intellilab, a new intelligence portal that will serve as a one-stop-shop for easily accessible data to help providers make well-informed decisions.
Providers also said they appreciated the opportunity to talk directly with senior ENZ staff, to ask questions and to network with other industry professionals.
“We’re taking this on-board. Going forward, Connect will be a regular part of our annual calendar,” said Greg.
Attendees also noted that telling the international education story in New Zealand should be a key priority for ENZ.
“Because we’re in this industry, we see the richness, diversity and global connectedness that international students bring everyday – but that often isn’t reflected in the media,” said Greg.
“We encourage providers to share their own stories with media as often as possible.”
Greg said it is an exciting time to be involved in international education and that the Connect sessions provided a chance to celebrate what the industry has achieved over the past nine months.
“We know there are challenges but there’s also lots to be proud of. Connect was a chance to remind us all of this.”
ENZ is currently collating feedback from the sessions to be sent out with the Connect presentation to attendees later this month.
Industry leaders gather for SIEBA hui
In 2016, international student enrolment numbers were 131,609. Of these, approximately 19,000 were enrolled in the New Zealand school sector: 16,390 at secondary level and 2,912 at primary. These numbers are expected to increase with a 16% growth in the primary school sector and 6% growth in secondary.
ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson said the hui was a great chance to connect with the school sector, and to update attendees about what’s happening in the wider industry.
“We appreciate the hard work you’re doing on behalf of students. You’re making an important contribution not just to your organisation but also to your region and New Zealand.”
The economic value of New Zealand’s international education industry in 2016 was estimated to be $4.5 billion. The schools sector is valued at $752 million, with $142 million coming from primary schools.
“Of course, it’s not all about economic value – we also know that international students bring cultural diversity and other wider benefits to our communities, classrooms and regions,” said Grant.
The hui was also an opportunity to celebrate leadership in the school sector through SIEBA’s inaugural leadership awards. Five awards were presented and ENZ would like to congratulate and thank those recipients.
Diana Murdoch – Garin College
Diana has more than 20 years’ experience in international education working in the tertiary and school sectors. She has led the delivery of international business services to schools through her own company and has been a role model for innovation and thinking ‘outside the box’. She has presented at conferences, led workshops and mentored new directors. She remains enthusiastic and passionate about international education and continues to become involved in projects to support growth whenever she can. Diana is the SIEBA liaison for her region.
Kim Harase – Academic Colleges Group
Kim has a rich history of 33 years in international education in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. In 1999, as Associate Principal & Director of Marketing she led international marketing for a group schools. From 2006, she has focused solely on international marketing, sales and business development. Kim is a regular presenter at conferences, is a member of ATEED’s Futures Group and was a member of ENZ’s School Sector Reference Group. Kim has been a valuable resource for the school sector for many years.
Lee Simeon – Pillans Point School
Lee has been an international director for the past 8 years and is passionate about international student welfare and creating a family-like environment within the international community at her school. Lee has played a lead role in helping numerous other schools to gain signatory status and is seen as a key resource for other schools going through the application process. In 2016, Lee represented primary schools as a co-author of the school sector Code guidelines and is the SIEBA liaison for her region.
Anne Marie Biggs – Glendowie Primary School
Anne Marie is the Principal of Glendowie Primary since 1995. As well as a string of education firsts to her school’s credit, Anne Marie has built international student numbers to more than 50. The school serves as a model of success for the primary school sector and Anne Marie is the first to offer guidance and share with colleagues and other schools. She has partnered with ENZ on growth projects, is a member of Study Auckland and served as a member of the SIEBA Establishment Board.
Denise Berry – Pakuranga College
Denise is Director of International at a leading Auckland high school. She has been a key member of her cluster group since 1996. She has been a mentor for many schools and directors new to international education. She was a leading author of the Code and Guidelines 2010, and also a co-author of the School sector guidelines 2016. Denise has a wealth of knowledge and has become one of the school sector’s go-to people for support and advice.
One million reasons to follow Study in New Zealand
The SiNZ social media community includes Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, WeChat, Instagram and Snapchat.
Olivia Silverwood, ENZ’s International Social Communities Manager, said while the one million milestone is a big achievement, the engagement from followers is just as good a reason to celebrate.
“In the education sector, even 1% engagement is seen as successful. Over the past 12 months, we have seen an average 8% engagement with Study in New Zealand’s social media content,” said Olivia.
“We know our followers are engaged and enthusiastic about New Zealand education and it’s positive to see results reflect this.”
Engagement is a measure of how users interact with content, such as sharing a Facebook post, retweeting a tweet, ‘favourite’ an Instagram image or clicking a link to a website. Social media engagement is an important metric as it indicates how effective content is.
To further measure the effectiveness of the social media activity, Olivia has benchmarked the SiNZ Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts against competitors, including Study in Australia, Study in the UK, Education in Ireland, Study Melbourne, Study in Canada and Study in the States.
“SiNZ consistently outranks all competitors’ Facebook and Instagram pages in terms of followers, follower growth, reach and engagement,” said Olivia.
“Our Twitter pages also outrank competitors in all areas except followers, where we are second to Education in Ireland.
“This is a fantastic space to be in and we aim to stay at the top.”
Olivia added that SiNZ wouldn’t have been able to achieve these great results without the student stories from institutions.
“There’s always an opportunity to collaborate more with our institutions’ social media team members,” she said.
If you’re interested in joining a social media working group, please email social@enz.govt.nz.
In the meantime, keep an eye on the SiNZ Facebook page to see how the milestone is being celebrated.
Around the world in five
CHINA
A model for teaching innovation in higher education worldwide?
China is stepping up its drive to lure overseas talent to become an innovation economy. An example of this is Shanghai-based DeTao Masters Academy (DTMA), which recruits 500 experts (‘Masters’) from universities and industry around the globe to regularly visit China and share their knowledge and skills with Chinese students and professionals.
Read more
SINGAPORE
Children must be ready for jobs ‘that do not yet exist’
Many children will end up working in jobs that do not yet exist, said Minister-in-charge of Singapore's Smart Nation initiative Vivian Balakrishnan. “We need to go beyond just the formal school curriculum”, he said, adding that the ABCs needed in school must be advanced: A for aesthetics (technology), B for building (applying) technology, and C for communication, to bridge the gap between user and technologist.
Read more
JAPAN
Junior high students rip elementary English as ‘useless’
In a new survey, 82.6 percent of sixth-grade students believe an English education is useful, but that figure plunged to 53.9 percent after they entered junior high. Researcher Yumiko Fukumoto said the loss of interest is lack of confidence in ability: “In junior high schools, children don’t spend much time on speaking or writing and the program is mostly based on translating and memorizing.”
Read more
INDIA
Why it is important for India’s education system to embrace disruption
Business, economy, politics and society are part of the same ecosystem. Educators therefore, have a duty to offer knowledge for enhancing skillsets and expertise that will help students face up to the challenges of the coming years. In this context, the higher education segment has a crucial role to play, but lack of qualified faculty, discipline, experiential learning and industry relevance is hindering students.
Read more
UNITED KINGDOM
Scrap fees for international students and use foreign aid budget to bring them to UK
The number of EU students applying to UK universities has fallen by 7 per cent since the Brexit vote. A professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham said the higher tuition fees is “extortionate” and should be scrapped altogether to encourage applicants. Instead, he said the Government should take money from the Department for International Development to recruit candidates and enable student mobility. Any leftover funding should be available to promote research collaborations anywhere in the world, he added.
Read more
ENZ Viet Nam introduces agent-led fairs
Tam Le, ENZ’s Marketing & Strategic Relations Manager for Viet Nam, said the decision is part of her team’s efforts to capitalise on the growing awareness of New Zealand’s education system in the market.
“Viet Nam’s academic year starts in late August and ends in late May, creating two key recruitment windows for international education: one in March/ April and one in September/ October.
“It is important to promote New Zealand in these months, and while ENZ previously led the fairs in the March recruiting season, we would like to leverage the resources from one of our top local education agents for the September season.”
Together with Immigration New Zealand, ENZ’s Viet Nam team identified a number of potential education agents and conducted a “pitching process” to select the most competitive proposal.
The chosen education agent, L&V Education Consultancy, will work directly with the education providers for the events in September, in consultation with ENZ where required.
To register for these events, please visit ENZ’s events page.
New Zealand’s education on Vietnamese national television
A documentary called New Zealand: The road to knowledge, recently played on VTV4, one of Viet Nam’s national TV stations.
Tam said it is great to see New Zealand’s education offering introduced to Vietnamese audiences – especially on a national channel.
The documentary highlights the requirements needed to apply for New Zealand institutions and provides key information about life in New Zealand such as accommodation options, public transport and extra-curricular activities.
It also includes interviews with the New Zealand Ambassador to Viet Nam, university representatives, alumni and current students.
Connecting institutions to a global audience
SiNZ is a powerful tool to capture the attention of high-quality international students. In the year to June 2017, more than 1.5 million people had more than 2 million sessions on the SiNZ website.
To help increase the number of international students that SiNZ directs to institutions, ENZ’s digital team is working with institutions to better convey their value propositions.
Lucia Alarcon, ENZ’s International Digital Project Manager, says the first step has been contacting institutions to update their contact details on SiNZ.
“We have had a great response so far, with almost half of the institutions we contacted engaging promptly,” said Lucia.
“ENZ referral traffic performs better than other sources of traffic so having SiNZ traffic referred to institutions increases conversion opportunities.”
Lucia said future communications will encourage institutions to update their SiNZ profiles, providing them with tips and advice to make a stronger profile.
“We’ll also keep them updated on our future plans for SiNZ, such as upgrading our search platform so it does an even better job of conveying institutions’ value proposition to international students.”
“We’ll also carry out a survey to find out how we can improve the referral process.”
For information on how to list an institution on SiNZ, email info@studyinnewzealand.govt.nz
ENZ opens South East Asia regional hub in Singapore
John Laxon, Regional Director for South and South East Asia & Middle East, welcomed the opening.
“The opportunities for the New Zealand education industry across South East Asia are large, with 2017 student visas up by 24 per cent across the region.
“ENZ’s Singapore office will enhance ENZ’s operations across South East Asia, by adding several regional specialist positions to support our in-market staff.”
ENZ has five priority markets in the region – Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines – and these are a key part of ENZ’s strategy to diversify the international student cohort in New Zealand. Students from these markets generated more than $360 million in economic activity for New Zealand last year.
Recruitment has begun for a South East Asia regional lead position advertised to manage ENZ’s in-market staff in Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Korean college adds Auckland to curriculum
From 2019, 120 Korean tertiary students from the college will come to Auckland each year, attending either the Auckland Institute of Studies (AIS), Academics College Group (ACG) or Cornell. They will spend 12 months gaining practical experience in the region as part of their three-year training course.
Koguryeo College teaches a range of courses in aviation, food science, natural energy, engineering, tourism and hospitality.
Auckland Tourism, Events & Economic Development (ATEED) International Education Manager Henry Matthews says the new partnership arose after ATEED hosted a group of visiting principals from Korea earlier this year as part of a professional development programme.
“The principals were so impressed by the warm welcome, the high standard of education institutes and great Kiwi lifestyle, they suggested to the college that Auckland would be the ideal study destination,” he said.
“For Korean students, gaining international work and study experience can put them ahead of other candidates when they’re looking for employment after their studies.”
As part of the agreement, Koguryeo College will also offer two scholarships for New Zealand and international students based here to go to Korea, learn the language and take part in the college’s various training programmes.
Korea is the fourth largest market for the international education sector in New Zealand. Some 5,000 Korean students base themselves in Auckland, contributing $167 million a year to the region. This new agreement will deliver an additional $3.5 million per year to the regional economy.
Korean students welcomed across New Zealand
The school visits programme is a joint initiative between the New Zealand and Korean Governments as part of the New Zealand-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which came into force in December 2015.
2017 is the second year of the three-year programme.
Twenty five schools from Canterbury, Waikato and Nelson-Marlborough regions will participate in the programme this year, with each school hosting on average five students.
ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson is pleased to welcome the students to New Zealand.
“The programme is a wonderful opportunity for Korean students to be part of our high-quality education system, to improve their English language skills and, at the same time, to experience the New Zealand lifestyle in our regions,” Grant said.
“The visit will also be an enriching experience for the Kiwi students involved.”
The Korean students start attending classes this week and are encouraged to try a range of new and different subjects. Students will also receive two hours of English language tuition per day and live with homestay families to get a taste of New Zealand family life.
ENZ is working with the Schools International Education Business Association (SIEBA) to deliver the programme.
ENZ is also running a social media competition with the visiting students by getting them to share their New Zealand education experience using the hashtag #studyinnz.