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Market insights from Japanese media
The journalists represented a range of Japanese news media with audiences of various interests, ages and social groups:
- Sachiko Habu, Editor-in-Chief of Nikkei DUAL, a digital magazine for working parents
- Ryo Fujii, Deputy Editor of CNET Japan, focused on technology and innovation news
- Yuko Okumura, a freelance journalist for Glolea!, promoting study abroad for Japanese students.
The journalists visited secondary schools, English language schools, early childhood education (ECE) providers and government agencies involved in technology-focused start-ups.
Misa Kitaoka, ENZ’s Senior Market Development Manager – Japan, said New Zealand’s approach to education was considered very forward-thinking in Japan.
“They realised that education in New Zealand is not about only acquiring knowledge, which is still the case in Japan, but about what one can do with the knowledge in dealing with the uncertainties that come with the accelerated globalisation and digitisation in society.”
New Zealand’s world-first education ranking for instilling future skills resonated with the journalists, as did the Government’s push to enable innovation in the private sector, its tertiary qualifications framework for ITPs, and unique ECE curriculum.
Government-led initiatives such as CreativeHQ were very attractive to the journalists as well.
“In Japan, it’s usually the private sector that drives innovation so seeing a government-led initiative in New Zealand really made an impression,” said Misa.
The journalists were interested that some New Zealand schools offered the International Baccalaureate (IB), which could be a pathway to tertiary study options in Japan, New Zealand, US and the UK.
“IB is a hot topic in Japan at the moment, with the Japanese government promoting international education and introducing international curricula such as the IB diploma to Japanese schools,” said Misa.
The journalists enjoy a Kiwi classic - hokey pokey ice cream.
The topic of Japanese parents bringing their pre-school children to an English-speaking country like New Zealand for a short-term immersion – the ‘barefeet study abroad’ experience, as one journalist put it – was also of interest. The journalists appreciated the “unique learning environment” offered by the New Zealand ECEs they visited.
“They were impressed to see children immersed in nature while learning how to be independent and resilient,” said Misa.
New Zealand’s high quality of life, healthy work-life balance and the flexibility of “work from home” also made a good impression.
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WREDA brings creative education to Beijing
John McKinnon, New Zealand’s Ambassador to China, opened the event which included entertainment, a World of Wearable Arts (WOW) model, and Weta senior prosthetics artists.
The event also saw the signing of a much-anticipated MOU between Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and Beijing Film Academy.
VUW Assistant Vice Chancellor Julia Innocente-Jones said the university has expanded its creative and digital programmes, including the establishment of the Miramar Creative Centre in 2017, situated near Weta in Miramar.
Adele Bryant, ENZ’s Regional Director North Asia, said nearly 2,000 Chinese students study in the creative capital each year, with plenty of opportunity for further growth.
“Creativity is at the heart of Wellington – whether in business, education, the arts, or tech innovations.
“Events like this help to show that New Zealand is more than just beautiful landscapes, and is home to many lucrative, creative industries.”
Almost 40 education agents attended the event, taking pictures with the ‘dwarf’ – a New Zealand student transformed by Weta prosthetics artists.
“The entertainment provided reinforced the relationships between Wellington institutions and the creative industries” said Adele.
“Agents were dazzled and left with a greater understanding of what the creative capital has to offer their students.”
You can view the WREDA video about Wellington as the creative capital here.
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ENZ updates agents on future plans at ANZA
ANZA is held in New Zealand every three years with this year’s event held at SkyCity Auckland.
Almost 450 participants from 49 countries attended. Agents from China, India, Colombia, Brazil and Viet Nam were most heavily represented. A quarter of agents were taking part in their first ANZA workshop and many had not visited New Zealand before.
ENZ Manager Agents, Dan Smidt speaks at the workshop
“We talked about ENZ’s plans to increasingly engage with quality agents. We want to ensure that quality agents have available to them the most effective tools, resources and training they need to promote New Zealand as a high quality and welcoming international study destination.ENZ Manager Agents, Dan Smidt, said ENZ used the opportunity to give an update on ENZ’s plans for agent engagement.
“We discussed the upcoming re-launch of the Education New Zealand Recognised Agents (ENZRA) programme and the online agent training programme we are creating.
“We also talked about how the new MyStudy platform on the Study in New Zealand website can help agents to advise prospective students on study options in New Zealand.”
ENZ Business Development Manager, Jo Keane, said ENZ staff offered a range of other information, support and advice.
“One of our team ran a seminar on how agents and providers can grow their business profile on Facebook using the collateral and material on ENZ’s current social channels.
“We also ran a seminar focusing on the innovative ways that a number of New Zealand’s regions support agents and grow advocacy through the creation of outstanding student experiences.
Education New Zealand’s plenary presentation in the early evening was particularly well received.
“We talked about our current FutureProof campaign and showed our new FutureProof video, which people loved.
“We also gave an overview of the Student Wellbeing Strategy and the work being done to move from a good-to-great student experience.”
Following the conference, 11 familiarisation tours took place around New Zealand including to Taranaki and Christchurch.
ANZA will next be held in New Zealand in April 2021 at the new Christchurch Convention Centre.
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New Zealand education tours Latin America
From 3-20 March, ENZ joined more than 25 New Zealand education providers and 150 agents for the 5th annual South American Roadshow.
The roadshow kicked off in Bogota, Colombia, with the first New Zealand Ambassador resident in Colombia, HE Lucy Duncan officially opening the New Zealand pavilion at EduExpo.
ENZ’s busy welcome desk at Eduexpo Bogota
Over two days, the pavilion had more than 12,000 visitors and was profiled on national television, proving Colombians’ growing interest in studying in New Zealand. The Bogota agent seminar attracted 120 agents.
For the first time, the roadshow included an agent seminar in Mexico, in response to industry demand to include the Central American country. Some 19 institutions and 24 agents attended, which Javiera Visedo, ENZ’s Senior Market Development Manager Colombia, said was a great start for the new market.
“It was a perfect opportunity to start business connections, and all agents were very pleased to know more about what New Zealand can offer their clients,” she said.
New Zealand Ambassador to Mexico Mark Sinclair at NZ Inc presentation in Mexico City
Brazil was the next stop with a two-day agent seminar attended by 25 institutions and 78 agents from across Brazil followed by involvement in EduExpo Sao Paulo.
Ana Azevedo, ENZ’s Senior Market Development Manager Brazil, said the agent seminar went very well and there were several highlights.
The Agent Seminar session at EduExpo Sao Paulo with New Zealand alumnus Ricardo Mendes speaking.
Also of note was a preview presentation of the 2018 BELTA Market Survey which is co-sponsored by Education New Zealand. Among the results was this figure – 82% of agents interviewed confirmed growth in interest among Brazilian students for study in New Zealand.New Zealand Ambassador to Brazil, Caroline Bilkey, participated in all activities on the first day, and agents and institutions held an impressive 412 meetings over the two days. “The agent seminar had a New Zealand alumni panel with alumni sharing their views on New Zealand education, which was very well received,” said Ana.
“This was extremely pleasing,” Ana said.
The New Zealand Pavilion at EduExpo Sao Paulo attracted 9,717 visitors over the weekend, and institutions were very pleased with the quality of the visitors and are already expecting to grow their current student numbers over the next 18 months.
The roadshow ended in Santiago, Chile with 18 agents (including two from Argentina) and 14 institutions participating in an agent seminar.
At the networking function, Chilean-Kiwi alumni attended as did Peter Chrisp, Chief Executive of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), who was very impressed to hear their stories and to see how proud they are of their time in New Zealand.
Ana and Javiera said the success of the roadshow was due to participation of many NZ Inc colleagues.
“For the first time, an NZ Inc presentation was part of the Agent Seminar, providing key insights to agents and providers of the different approaches and priorities of each New Zealand government entity present in the region.
“In particular, we would like to thank Immigration New Zealand for allowing two immigration officers to participate in the events, providing training sessions to agents and to give advice to students during the fairs.”
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11 million engagements across channels
Patrick Holden, ENZ’s Digital Media Project Manager, said this makes it ENZ's single largest marketing campaign yet.
“We are really pleased with how ENZ’s ‘Future Proof’ campaign has been tracking since its launch on 19 March,” he said.
New Zealand was ranked the #1 country in the world for educating students for the future, according to a report by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released late last year.
On 19 March, ENZ launched an eight-week global campaign to promote the ranking and encourage international students to sign-up to ENZ’s database marketing programme.
The first ‘dream’ phase of the campaign focused on awareness.
“We reached over 30 million people and have had 11,757,000 engagements across our digital and social ecosystem.
“This is the largest qualified audience ENZ has ever achieved in a single campaign.”
The second phase of the campaign started on 1 April and is focussed on converting the audience into enquiries to institutions. Ten days in, 11,600 referrals have been made.
The ‘Future proof’ campaign integrates ENZ’s social communities and digital channels via ENZ’s student attraction engine and is the first campaign integrated with the database marketing platform.
The third ‘decide’ phase will introduce the My StudyNZ member centre tool for which we received excellent feedback from the pilot prospective student group.
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Japanese students join Kiwi flight school
The students came from Kinjo Gakuin University in Nagoya, Japan and studied a short course specially designed for them. In addition to New Zealand School of Tourism’s flight attending course, they also had a session from Cut Above Academy about hair and makeup training, as immaculate grooming is an essential part of the job.
Shizuko Ozaki, a teacher from Kinjo Gakuin University, said the girls loved their time at the airport campus, and were impressed with the school’s facilities – including offering training onboard a real plane.
“They enjoyed the hands-on learning and the practical aspect of the training on the 737 aircraft. The trainer was fantastic with our students, she made the learning easy for them to understand and follow. They also enjoyed interacting with the other classes and they felt very comfortable and welcomed on campus.”
New Zealand School of Tourism frequently creates bespoke programmes for international groups.
New Zealand student Armani Young said having international groups at the college was a bonus for everyone involved. She said it gave the trainers the opportunity to learn about other cultures, and the international students the chance to experience life in New Zealand.
“Our class also loved interacting with the Japanese group. They were quiet and shy at first, but soon became comfortable and had fun interacting with us. It was great to share our culture with them.”
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New deal will bring over a million New Zealand books to Chinese schools
To bring the books to China, Global Education Systems (GES) is working in partnership with a leading Chinese foreign languages publisher, Foreign Language Teaching Research Publishing (FLTRP).
The series, which includes both hard copy and digital books, will support existing government text books for English language learners in Chinese schools.
“We aim to equip students in China with a burning desire to become life-long readers and writers in English,” said GES Director Tracy Strudley.
“The focus of our material is to engage students with meaningful texts that teach in-depth language comprehension and writing.”
The deal marks the largest print run for an Australasian education publisher to date – totaling 1.632 million books.
The series was developed by author and GES Product Development and Education Director Jill Eggleton QSO. Eggleton was the 2015 recipient of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal for lifetime achievement and an outstanding contribution to New Zealand children’s literature and literacy.
“The Key Links series is well designed and follows many of the requirements in the newly released National Curriculum,” said Zhang Lixin, Director of FLTRP’s Basic Education Publishing Division.
Eggleton, Strudley and Steve Jones, NZ Trade Commissioner based in Guangzhou, will travel to Shenzhen on 17 April for the launch of the Key Links series at a foreign language teaching conference. Some 400 administrators and teachers across China will receive training in the Key Links Literacy learning approach ahead of a May release into Henan province schools.
Negotiations between GES and FLTRP began during a trade mission sponsored by Education New Zealand in June 2016.
Education technology is an important, and growing contributor to the trade relationship between China and New Zealand.
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INZ student visa processing update
Immigration New Zealand’s (INZ) Palmerston North Area Office (PNAO) is coming out of the peak processing period for onshore student visa applications, with the last of the March visa applications still to be processed.
The standard processing timeframe for a student visa application is 20 working days for an online application, and 25 working days for a paper-based application.
Kimberley Polata, PNAO Head of Operations, said her team is working on applications received within the last 20 days and is committed to clearing these applications by the end of April.
Progress has already been made towards this, with PNAO sending out nearly 1,800 visa decisions in the last week alone, she said
“There are approximately 1,100 visa applications where further documentation or information has been requested from the student, and this is required in order to compete the application.”
Ms Polata asks that education providers check in with their students who are still waiting for their visa decision and ask them to check their email and online applications for communication from INZ.
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Have your say on major review of education
There are several ways people can become involved in the Education Conversation | Kōrero Mātauranga.
People can offer their thoughts on the future of education using the simple online public survey at https://conversation.education.govt.nz/and engage on social media using the hashtag #EdConvo18.
The Ministry of Education has been working with stakeholder groups across the sector to identify possible participants for two Education Summit events being held next month – in Christchurch on 5-6 May and Auckland on 12-13 May.
Some 3,000 nominations have been received for the total of 1,600 spaces at the events. Invitations are going out this week to people representing the full breadth of the sector and the wider community, including students.
Fiona Weightman, the Ministry’s Group Manager Communications and Stakeholder Engagement, said that not everyone who wishes to will be able to participate directly in the Summit events as numbers have to be limited due primarily to venue capacity.
“In acknowledgement of this, there will also be regional opportunities after the Summit events for local communities to share their ideas and continue the kōrero.”
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Around the world in five
IRELAND
Ireland to create new technological universities
Ten of Ireland’s 14 institutes of technology are working together to merge and set up four new technological universities focused on science and technology programmes by September 2018.
Read moreCOLOMBIA
Colombia hopes peace can attract postgraduates
The ongoing peace process has given new impetus to the country’s efforts to attract international students, with the Colombia Scholarship scheme for postgraduate students doubling its budget and inviting 110 applications.
Read moreINDONESIA
University sector to open to 100 percent foreign ownership
Indonesia’s university sector will open to 100 percent foreign investment, including allowing foreign universities to open local campuses, according to the head of the country’s investment board.
Read moreUK
Alliance needed on student mental health
A student mental health report has prompted a group of stakeholders in the education sector to call for more collaboration to improve mental health of students, including international students.
Read moreCHINA
App designed to help protect Chinese students abroad
A private company has launched an app to provide a range of security, travel and emergency support services to Chinese international students in New Zealand, US, Australia, Cambodia and Israel.
Read more
