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Putting us in their hearts and on their maps
Some 21 agents from Brazil, Colombia, South Korea and Saudi Arabia were treated to tours of New Zealand’s special places.
ENZ's regional and international teams organised the programmes and toured with the agents over May and June.
“The agents really enjoyed and appreciated the chance to learn about education in New Zealand, meet current international students and understand the distinctive regional offerings for students across all of New Zealand,” said Greg Scott, ENZ Regional Programme Manager.
The tours included stops in Taranaki, Nelson, Canterbury, Waiuku, Hamilton, Dunedin, Queenstown, Napier, Wellington and Auckland.
Each tour contained lots of interactive activities and emphasised education pathways and applied learning and creative technologies.
The potential benefit to raising the profile of a New Zealand education amongst all these markets is immense.
“The Korean agents indicated that their understanding has greatly increased of everything New Zealand has to offer,” said Tania Woodcock, International Market Manager, China, Korea and Japan.
“So far, the feedback from the participating agents has been extremely positive and genuine,” said Sarah Gauthier, Regional Project Manager.
“We ensured the agents enjoyed themselves and their time in New Zealand – so that they could speak authentically to prospective international students and their families about the value of a New Zealand education.”
ENZ was seeing lots of photos of New Zealand on the agents’ social media feeds and their agencies’ websites.
“This type of engagement with New Zealand post-famil is great,” said Sahinde Pala, Regional Project Manager. “It shows the impact we made on the agents, and their commitment to promoting New Zealand education.”
“We’d like to thank all the people, organisations and regional groups who supported these famils,” said Sarah.
“It was a true Team New Zealand effort. We appreciated the time everyone took to host us, meet with the agents, organise tours and ensure that relevant international students were available to speak to the agents in their own language.
“There’s nothing like hearing why New Zealand is such a great place to be a student than from real international students. By speaking about their study, lifestyle and work opportunities, the tours were really brought to life.”
For more information contact Sarah Gauthier, Regional Project Manager, sarah.gauthier@enz.govt.nz
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New student support portal launched by India Government
“With the big increase in our students making New Zealand their education destination choice, we felt the time was right to extend our outreach to them for the best international experience for them and their families,” said Mr Sanjiv Kohli, High Commissioner of India to New Zealand.
The new portal has been welcomed by Education New Zealand and its NZ Inc partner agencies, Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Education, New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“We are committed to supporting these kinds of initiatives, and we encourage providers to share this information with their relevant student cohorts,” said John Goulter, Education New Zealand General Manager, Stakeholders, Communication and Intelligence.
“We all want our young people to take advantage of the opportunities available to them, and an international education experience broadens horizons and possibilities.
“Safety and well-being is a critical part of New Zealand’s international education journey and we are always looking for ways to support our international students.”
More information on the Government of India student portal can be found here. Indian students are encouraged to register.
Last month, the New Zealand Government strengthened the education code for pastoral care and established a dispute resolution scheme. New Zealand was a world leader when it first introduced the pastoral care code in 2002, and well-being initiatives for international students continue to be a significant part New Zealand’s education environment.
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Huge response to Indonesia promotion
Prime Minister John Key and Education New Zealand Chief Executive, Grant McPherson, recently visited Indonesia. One of the highlights of the trip was a Jawa Pos event in Surabaya involving 2,500 students and 500 teachers to promote a competition to win a trip to New Zealand.
Jawa Pos is the largest newspaper group in Indonesia with over 500,000 copies circulated daily. Zetizen is Jawa Pos’ new news portal targeted at young people aged between 12-23 years old.Jawa Pos wanted to generate a buzz around the launch of their new platform. After consulting with NZ Inc. in Indonesia it was decided that a competition to win a trip to New Zealand would be the perfect hook to grab young people’s attention.
The tagline of the competition is: be a good Zetizen and go to New Zealand. Young people are being tasked with taking a positive action in their community and writing a short essay about why they should be chosen to come to New Zealand.
Jawa Pos has been profiling New Zealand and New Zealand educational institutions since the competition launched in May. The newspaper group will fly 34 young Indonesians to New Zealand in November for the trip of a lifetime – all captured and documented by a group of journalists who will be accompanying them.
Education New Zealand, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade are putting together a fantastic programme. The group will visit schools and tertiary institutions in Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington. They will also get the chance to sample the wonderful tourist activities and fantastic food New Zealand has to offer.This competition is giving New Zealand fantastic profile and reaching a very targeted age group. These young people may very well go on to study in New Zealand.
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Get involved in INZ’s Pathway Student Visa pilot
Invitations to take part in the pilot were sent to over 500 primary, secondary and tertiary providers on the basis that they have a student visa application approval rate of 90% or higher for the 2014/15 financial year.
INZ has not received replies from all the providers that were invited to participate in the pilot, and would like to encourage all eligible providers to get involved.
INZ will resend invitations to eligible providers that are not already participating.
If you think the previous invitation was sent to an incorrect email address, please email pathwayvisasfeedback@mbie.govt.nz to advise.
What is a Pathway Student Visa and why should I offer it to my students?
A Pathway visa allows a student to undertake up to three consecutive programmes of study on a single visa. The visa can be granted for a maximum period of five years.
The programmes of study can be at a single education provider (e.g. Years 11-13 at a secondary school), or can be at up to three different providers (e.g. English language studies, followed by foundation studies, followed by a degree programme).
In terms of funds, INZ needs to see that tuition fees have been paid for the first year of study or first course of study (whichever is shorter). Students must also prove funds to maintain themselves for the same period (the first year, or the first course).
INZ does not need to see liquid funds for the subsequent years/programmes of study, but does need to be satisfied that the student will be able to fund the rest of their stay, e.g. their parents have a regular and stable income.
More information on Pathway visas, including a list of providers that are already participating in the pilot, can be found on the INZ website.
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Koreans land safely into New Zealand schools
They are in New Zealand for an eight-week programme that includes English language provision. The programme is a direct result of the Free Trade Agreement signed in December 2015 between New Zealand and South Korea.
Peter Bull, ENZ General Manager International, said the Korean students are the children of farming or fishing families, and are all high performing students.
“The opportunity to study in New Zealand and to represent their family, school and Korea in this inaugural year of the scholarship scheme saw students go through a selection criteria that whittled down over 2,000 applications to the 150 selected.”
ENZ partnered closely with the Schools International Education Business Association (SIEBA) to implement the scholarship scheme in New Zealand through its member schools, and to help manage the logistics involved in coordinating such a large group of students at once.
Peter paid tribute to SIEBA for also delivering orientations in the three regions to ensure that the transition into New Zealand life was as seamless as possible for the Korean visitors.
A highlight of the orientation programme occurred at Canterbury’s Pudding Hill Lodge, near Methven. The students were welcomed with a waiata from some talented Mount Hutt College students. This was followed by a very warm welcome from Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce that was then reciprocated by the Korean students.
The other welcome ceremonies were held at St Paul’s Collegiate School in Hamilton, which was attended by the Korean Ambassador, and President of EPIS, the Korean agency responsible for the implementation of the programme, and at Garin College in Nelson.
As agreed under the KNZFTA, 450 students will be granted scholarships to study in New Zealand over three years.
The arrival of the students has made the headlines in the local press. Here are just some of the stories which have been published so far.
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Where education meets technology, cyber-romance blooms
Among the attendees was a group of New Zealand edtech companies and educators. Representatives of Massey University and Linewize joined the New Zealand Technology Industry Association (NZTech) Chief Executive, Graeme Muller, and Education New Zealand (ENZ) Business Development Manager, Adele Bryant, at the event.
“NZTech formed the EdtechNZ Association last year so it was fantastic to offer members the chance to scope one of the biggest edtech events in the world,” said Graeme.
Altogether about 20 New Zealand delegates were in Denver which provided the opportunity to learn about global edtech trends, meet prospective partners and scope the possibility of exhibiting at the associated Expo usauin the future.
“The conference featured an amazing array of professional learning and collaborative networking opportunities while the expo hall showcased a wide range of edtech tools and solutions,” said Adele.
Attendees could choose from more than 1,000 sessions in a variety of formats to support all learning styles.
“The passion of teachers for using edtech tools to engage, manage and extend learners was evident from the start and suggests that the future for edtech in the classroom is bright.
“A key take away was that educators were looking to spend more time engaging with students and less on developing their own resources, so easy-to-use and educationally sound tools which met learner needs were sought,” said Adele.
“Supplying that technology is big business. The global edtech sector is estimated to be worth over $100 billion and Kiwi companies are keen to raise their international profile and provide solutions to meet that growing global demand.”
Kiwi edtech success story Hapara (a cloud-based instructional management system for educational institutions) provided the New Zealand delegation a welcome opportunity to meet and network at a ‘Kiwi Hour’ onsite at the conference. Among the group were Auckland-based edtech companies, Kami and Booktrack as well as Core Education and Network for Learning. Representatives of the Manaiakalani Trust delivered a Visible Learning session on the programme.
The NZTech-led group also attended a breakfast session on the role of schools and edtech companies in professional learning. The group reconnected there with Karen Billings, Vice President of the Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of the Software Information and Industry Association (SIIA) who was a speaker at ENZ’s first edtech for export (‘et4e’) conference.
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Fourth ‘et4e’ merges with NZTech Education Technology Summit
NZTech and ENZ combined forces again to introduce an edtech stream into a broader technology and education theme that attracted some 250 educationalists and edtech delegates.
The Minister of Education, Hon Hekia Parata, opened the summit with an announcement on the development of a new digital technologies curriculum.
“Having just returned from the world’s largest convention on education and technology, it is comforting to know that every country is struggling with how best to mix technology and education,” said Chief Executive, Graeme Muller.
“But what they all agree on is the importance of a new style of teaching, and the introduction of computational thinking and enquiry-based learning models are accepted as the way forward.”
Like ISTE, there was a strong emphasis in the sessions on the importance of collaboration between educationalists and edtech companies to identify and solve problems in the classroom.
“I found a lot of value as a member of an EdTech company in attending a conference alongside the educators that are passionate about technology in their setting,” said Louise Duffy of Invercargill-based Essential Resources.
“It gave some excellent insights into some of their challenges and how to better support technology in education.”
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EdTech tour continues to raise New Zealand’s profile
Svenia and Audrey Jarre were hosted by Education New Zealand to visit edtech companies and educational institutions in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin in December as part of their seven-country and five-month study of edtech ecosystems (see 16 March news story).
Last week, the pair released their report and New Zealand video in which some excellent initiatives from around the world and New Zealand are profiled.
Some key themes for successful edtech are:
- Local context matters – ‘there is no Uber for education’
- Requires a supportive eco-system and community
- ‘Teachers are the killer app’
- Requires infrastructure, professional development and teacher input.
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NZ education features in Malaysia newspaper
“New Zealand offers one of the top-ranked education systems in the world,” said Jane Goh, Education New Zealand (ENZ) Marketing and Strategic Relations Manager in Kuala Lumpur.
“Unfortunately, the strengths of the New Zealand education system go relatively unrecognised or have low awareness in Malaysia, especially compared with its growing popularity in China and India.”
Jane said this represents a significant opportunity in Malaysia for institutions prepared to invest time and effort into student recruitment and partnership development. She called Malaysia “a promising but largely untapped” market.
“Malaysia is not only a vibrant market for recruiting international students but it is a popular international studying destination for Asian students and students from Islamic countries.”
Jane said there needed to be a consistent, industry-wide strategic approach taken to the Malaysia market to highlight New Zealand education quality.
“We decided to invest in a promotional project that included a series of key messages about New Zealand education, current students and alumni stories, as well as an overall picture of studying and living experience in New Zealand.”
ENZ played a major role in this project and worked closely with The Star, the largest local English newspaper in circulation.
“We wrote the content and edited several interviews into stories. The key intent was to position New Zealand as a world-class education destination.
“We wanted the market to know about our internationally renowned universities, our learning experience and to hear from Malaysian students who have studied in New Zealand.”
Jane said she was pleased to get support from the University of Auckland, Canterbury University, Lincoln University, University of Otago and Southern Institute of Technology. These universities contributed their angle of story and paid for advertising.
The feature was published in late July, just before the series of NZ Education Fair and roadshows in Malaysia.
“We then continued this effort with a media roundtable on the 2 August, to discuss the importance of holistic education in today’s employment market.”
You can read the whole feature here.
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Getting ready to celebrate 25 years
2016 celebrates 25 years of New Zealand International Education conferences being held. During the conference, we’ll be celebrating some of the highlights of our industry’s journey.
If you’re joining us in Auckland, make sure you check out the history display in the exhibition hall. We traverse a handful of key highlights as the industry has developed and evolved over the past 25+ years.
If you’re not able to join us in Auckland, you can follow the conversation on Twitter at #nziec and on Weibo at #2016新西兰国际教育年会NZIEC#.
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Here, Richard Smith, founding director of Auckland Institute of Studies (AIS), reflects on his time in the industry, outlining how AIS has evolved over the years.
Blazing a trail over 25 years ago
Richard Smith talks about his experience in the international education industry.“In the late 1980s, I was involved in business between New Zealand and China in both the public and private sectors, and regularly received enquiries about education in New Zealand.
So in 1990, my two business partners and I set up AIS. We were based in the Downtown Centre, Auckland, initially as an English language school, starting with a single class of international students. In our second year, we added business studies, then travel and tourism courses, and appointed marketing officers for Japan and China. AIS quickly grew to more than 200 students.
The entire roll of AIS could fit in one room back in 1991.
In the first five years, we worked seven days a week, putting in huge hours. I was on the business development and admin side, doing everything from paying staff, processing student applications, and signing up agent representatives.
In 1992, we brought in new business partners from Taiwan and Japan, and bought the old St Helens maternity hospital, set on 10 acres in Mount Albert. It had been empty for two years and was very rundown. Moving from the city to the suburbs was a good move as it allowed for expansion. Being in a residential area meant easy access to homestays for students. We also converted the old nursing home into student accommodation. In 1993, the doors of the new campus opened after a year of refurbishment.
AIS was reborn at the old St Helen’s maternity hospital.
The following year we launched our first degree, the Bachelor of International Business, becoming the first private business school at degree level in New Zealand. In 1995, we started delivering an MBA programme. Then in 2002, we opened our second campus, the Asquith Campus, where we developed new degree programmes in tourism, hospitality and information technology.
Over the years, more than 20,000 students have studied at AIS. Today, we cater for around 1,500 students from all around the world.
Looking back, we were like trailblazers really, starting from scratch alongside other new organisations like New Zealand Qualifications Authority and New Zealand Education International Ltd, and putting in the hard yards. In 2015, we celebrated our 25th anniversary.”
AIS students celebrate graduation, 1993.
