21 July 2022 at 10:30 am
Palmerston North’s education connections with Viet Nam
Education links between Palmerston North and Ho Chi Minh City were strengthened on 23 June 2022, with the signing of a new Memorandum of Arrangement (MoA) on education cooperation. The MoA sets objectives for the next three years, focusing on educational exchanges.
The MoA signing is the latest development in the education relationship between Palmerston North and Ho Chi Minh City – an earlier agreement signed in 2014 had expired in 2019. Unlike the 2014 agreement, which only included a few education providers in Palmerston North, the renewed MoA captures a much broader range of institutions, from schools to tertiary providers.
Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao had helped to sustain this relationship in 2020, through the NZ Global Competence Certificate initiative. The Central Economic Development Agency and the Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) teamed up with ENZ to offer scholarships for 50 secondary school students in Manawatū and Ho Chi Minh City to increase their global competency – read more here.
The new MoA was signed by Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith on behalf of PNCC and Deputy Director from Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Education and Training, Duong Tri Dung. It was witnessed by Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Van Trung, New Zealand Ambassador Tredene Dobson, and representatives of ENZ.
“Education arrangements like this help to further strengthen these ties. Building on sustained and increasing interest from New Zealand education providers to engage with institutional counterparts in Ho Chi Minh City, this will open a new chapter for collaboration and success for the respective cities,” Ms Dobson said.
