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  • A word from the Minister

    It has been, and continues to be, an extremely challenging time for many of New Zealand’s universities, schools, polytechnics and institutes of technology, as well as private providers and English language schools with our border closed.

    But I think we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I anticipate we will have a further 12-18 months of disruption before we see a future where much of that will start to fade. The recent news of promising vaccines against COVID-19 is very encouraging. It’s difficult to share an exact timeline with you all as we need to consider vaccination around the rest of the world and international supply chains.

    Over the next 12 months, I expect to see a series of progressive changes. That could look like a risk tolerance map of the world for countries that we have safe travel zones with, or for countries we have lower isolation requirements for when they arrive, for example.

    While we are looking to move as quickly as possible on the border, it is very unlikely that there will be one magic day where we cut a ribbon at the airport and all travellers will be welcomed in.

    We have made a start and granted an exemption for a cohort of 250 postgraduate (largely PhD) students to enter New Zealand from early next year to continue their study. And we’ll consider further cohorts in the future, based on capacity.

    This government will continue to support the sector through our Recovery Plan for international education.

    The recent New Zealand Global Pathways initiative that New Zealand universities, ENZ and NCUK have entered into is a very welcome development. It’s the first time that ENZ and all the universities have been involved in such a partnership. It’s encouraging and it’s the sort of innovation that we are looking for during this period of difficulty.

    International education has been good for New Zealand – not just economically, but culturally and socially too. I look forward to waving the flag for New Zealand internationally and at home too. New Zealand has such an incredible, high-value education to offer to the rest of the world.

    Meri Kirihimete,

    Chris Hipkins

    Minister of Education

  • ENZ confirms 2021 Recognised Agencies

    Education agents play a crucial role in New Zealand's international education ecosystem, including supporting students and their families during COVID-19.

    ENZ’s recognised agent (ENZRA) programme aims to increase engagement with quality education agencies that have demonstrated a long-term commitment to promoting New Zealand as an international study destination.

    More than ever, ENZ Recognised Agencies contribute to a unique and high-quality student experience and to the positioning, market share and overall achievement of New Zealand within the international education sector.

    To acknowledge the impacts of COVID-19 on agents and their inability to place students with education providers in New Zealand, all current Recognised Agencies were provided an opportunity to extend their time in the programme subject to meeting conduct requirements.

    The new list of ENZ Recognised Agencies is now available to view online on our StudywithNewZealand website. For queries regarding education agents, please email: agenthelp@enz.govt.nz.

    The next round of applications to the programme will open in early 2022.

  • ENZ invites proposals to establish New Zealand Education Centres globally

    The centres will deliver education programmes for students progressing onto further study with New Zealand education providers, and act as pathways for greater education, cultural and diplomatic engagement between New Zealand and partner countries.

    The centres will receive support from New Zealand universities, ENZ design and marketing packages, and have opportunities to host events, promotions and student mobility activities.

    “In developing New Zealand Education Centres we are extending our support for international students offshore, and providing flexibility in how and where they experience a high-quality New Zealand education” ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson said.

    “The establishment of New Zealand Education Centres will support both the Government’s International Education Recovery Plan and the goals of the New Zealand International Education Strategy aiming for a more globally connected New Zealand.”  

    Interested organisations can contact John Laxon, Director Global Education Partnerships (nzcentres@enz.govt.nz) to receive further information on the establishment process.

    Download the NZ Centre Proposal Summary Information 2021 here.

    Proposals are due by Wednesday 25 May, with centres being established and open for initial student intakes by 2022.

  • Feedback from education agents opens up conversation on how ENZ can better support them

    Over half (57 per cent) of those surveyed are members of the ENZ Recognised Agency (ENZRA) programme.

    The survey, a cross-team ENZ initiative, was a useful opportunity to open up a conversation with agents and to continue to support them while borders remain closed.

    Over 40 per cent of agents surveyed said that that 75 to 100 per cent of their business activities had changed or reduced due to the pandemic. Agents also reported experiencing a reduction of staff, closed branches and transitioning to fully remote operations.

    ENZ-supported webinars, online and hybrid events were most valuable to agents, followed closely by digital collateral and marketing material, support for student-facing activities, B2B events with education providers and training.

    On training needs, 60 per cent of agents surveyed said that they would like to receive training on student visa application processes, 50 per cent were keen on hearing about New Zealand education providers and their offering, while 40 per cent were keen for more professional development training.

    Videos, templates (including banners and PowerPoint presentations), student testimonials and brochures were reported to be the marketing tools that agents find most useful.

    ENZ’s Manager – Education Agents, Geneviève Rousseau Cung, says the survey is a key component of ENZ’s agent engagement plan as part of the Government’s Recovery Plan for International Education.

    “Insights from the survey will allow ENZ to develop activities, tailored communications and training initiatives that are best aligned with agent needs, which in turn, will also inform and result in better outcomes for education providers.

    “Seeing how the agent engagement plan is linked closely to the longer-term recovery of international education, it is crucial that we check in with our agents on a regular basis,” Geneviève says.

    The current plan has three areas of focus – supporting the ENZ Recognised Agencies Activity Fund in New Zealand and offshore with marketing initiatives, driving the agent engagement plan through a range of initiatives, and ongoing recognition of the role of education agents.

    For enquiries:

    Keep an eye out for the full results from the Agent Survey in the next issue of ENZ’s The Insight Story, due out in early May.

  • From the CE: Building Back Better: How we’re balancing our efforts on the road to recovery

    The current COVID-19 surges are a reminder that we face a long road to recovery and rebuild of the international education sector, a point highlighted during ENZ’s recent appearance at the New Zealand Parliamentary select committee.

    ENZ remains strongly focused on the goals of the New Zealand International Strategy 2018-2030: sustainable growth, an excellent education and student experience, and increased global citizenship for New Zealand students. It is important that we rebuild with those goals front of mind.

    At ENZ, we are fully committed to supporting other agencies and the sector in progressing the re-entry of students. ENZ staff have been seconded to other government agencies here and overseas to support these initial steps towards the recovery.

    We have been increasingly asked about the place of ‘transformation’ within our recovery. The simple answer is it complements and reinforces our ability to attract students to New Zealand in the future.

    This work enables us to connect with education partners and students that we otherwise wouldn’t reach. The work is about growing the pie for all the international education sector and for New Zealand, rather than competing with existing efforts.

    Through this work we will collectively be more competitive in attracting students as student mobility opportunities emerge, and in anticipating the accelerating changes in the delivery of and learner engagement with education globally.

    Although each part of the Government’s Recovery Plan may progress in different ways at different times, we are committed to progressing them collectively and for the benefit of our sector as a whole.

    Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi

    With your food-basket, and my food-basket, the people will be well.

    Ngā mihi,            

    Grant McPherson

    Chief Executive Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao

  • NauMai NZ is 2

    Since launch, NauMai NZ has had half a million page views and just under 300,000 users accessing practical resources on topics such as Visas and immigration, Personal wellbeing, Housing, and Working, not to mention learning about Māori culture, improving English language skills, making friends, living like a local or getting a part time job.

    The platform has a bounce rate of just 15% and 11,500 students have joined the NauMai NZ database.  ENZ’s AI chatbot Tohu sits on the platform, and the NauMai NZ WeChat mini programme launched late last year, ensures resources are delivered to the platform of choice for Chinese students.

    One focus in 2020 was obviously how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. An official COVID-19 page was launched, collating and curating trusted and relevant government information particular to international students. To accompany this page, a ‘Stay Well, Stay Connected’ page was launched, recognising the particular challenges that the pandemic brings around health and wellbeing. These pages have to date received over 90,000 views.

    Throughout 2020, content that wasn’t COVID-19 specific was also developed. Through research, we identified and developed new topics including Managing your money, Sexual healthcare and Dating, relationships and sex.

    As the 2020 academic year ended and borders remained closed, the ‘Summer in NZ’ microsite was launched, remaining live until April this year. The purpose was to inform and support students remaining in New Zealand over summer when they would normally return to their families and home country. The Student Experience team at ENZ was very aware that an unexpected summer in New Zealand may put stress on some students.

    We pulled together information from multiple sources, including from tourism operators and regional development agencies. Summer partnerships with LinkedIn and AFS New Zealand were also promoted to proactively engage students with their skill development resources.  

    NauMai NZ is still growing and as 2021 moves at pace, ongoing content development continues alongside user journey review and improvement.

    “NauMai NZ is a valuable resource enabling ENZ to communicate with and support international students – particularly during the pandemic,” ENZ Director – Student Experience & Global Citizens, Sahinde Pala, says.

    “We look forward to evolving it to better serve students’ needs, both in New Zealand and offshore, in 2021 and beyond.”

    2021 brings a complexity of challenges for students.  The challenge for NauMai NZ is to meet and address those challenges - better supporting the many students who remain studying in New Zealand and the increasing numbers of those studying offshore with a New Zealand provider, and of course being ready to welcome students when they are able to travel here in the future.

    But for now, happy birthday NauMai NZ, and a big thank you from us to everyone who has supported its development and use.

  • Schools sector infrastructure a key focus of renewed ENZ-SIEBA partnership

    Under the agreement, SIEBA will provide resources and support tailored to schools, including webinars, workshops and newsletters, mentoring, good practice templates and advice.

    “We hope that this partnership will help schools retain the infrastructure and expertise they’ve worked so hard to build,” ENZ Business Development Manager Mary Camp says.

    “We’re looking forward to continuing our strategic partnership with SIEBA, working together to offer practical ways to support schools and their staff through the next phase of the pandemic.”

    SIEBA played a key role in supporting hundreds of schools through the early days of COVID. From April to June 2020, ENZ enabled SIEBA to provide triage support and crisis advice services to schools across the country, providing advice to manage issues related to the closure of the border and repatriation of international students.

    “We are very pleased to extend our partnership with ENZ and be involved in the important work of helping the school sector be ‘Ready-to-Go’ when students can once again enrol in New Zealand schools,” SIEBA Executive Director, John van der Zwan, says.

    “Special effort will go to providing professional learning and development and support for new international professionals as they join the sector and to provide opportunities for all international staff to explore and prepare for the challenges of working in a post COVID-19 environment.”

  • Festival puts spotlight on global citizenship

    The three-day summit held in-person at Wellington’s TSB Arena and around the world virtually, hosted more than 1,300 attendees from across all New Zealand regions. The event also attracted an online audience from more than 30 countries.

    ENZ supported several international students and Prime Minister’s Scholarship alumni to attend the festival including  Matt Le, who says the three-day summit was a valuable and memorable experience to be part of.

    “Simply put, Festival for the Future represents the idea of: when change-makers get into the same room and have an open discussion about the future, great things are bound to bloom.

    Matt says he enjoyed the inspirational stories and meaningful conversations cultivated by the event.  

    “For me, it was the realisation that change is possible, and change can start today.”

    ENZ Global Citizens Manager Carla Rey Vasquez says the festival was a great opportunity to advance continued work on Global Citizenship, the third pillar of the International Education Strategy (NZIES).

    “We partnered with Inspiring Stories because we firmly believe in the kaupapa of Festival for the Future, we want to show the world that New Zealand is a place where people care, where they take action on the things they care about and where new thinking is encouraged.”

    As a silver sponsor of the festival, ENZ hosted attendees in a lounge on the festival’s marketplace floor, where they were invited to share coffee and a korero/conversation about international education and what it means to them. Their responses are being collated by ENZ and will help shape future work in advancing Goal Three of the NZIES.

    Carla says ENZ wants every student who engages with the New Zealand education system to unleash their potential to change the world.

    “The expo space offered ENZ the opportunity to connect directly with change-makers, innovators, influencers, leaders and dreamers, and to hear their thoughts about what Global Citizenship means to them, and what a New Zealand education can offer the world.”

    The booth was visited by over 800 participants, and the team conducted and collected over 500 surveys.

    “These insights will be critical in informing our approach to Global Citizenship strategy and how ENZ can contribute to this space in the future,” Carla says.

    ENZ also supported the Global Impact Award during the event’s awards night. The award was presented to Francesca Goodman-Smith - a young New Zealander taking action to stop food waste globally, and presented by ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson.

    See a list of nominees and winners of the 2021 Impact Awards here: theimpactawards.nz/2021-winners

    If you’d like to know more about the Festival for the Future and ENZ’s involvement, get in touch with us here: info@enz.govt.nz

  • New student forum for NauMai NZ WeChat mini programme

    Education New Zealand’s NauMai NZ platform is designed to inform, support and empower international students.

    A WeChat mini programme – an app designed for the WeChat ecosystem popular with Chinese students – has extended NauMai NZ’s reach, attracting over 12,000 users in its first year.

    The NauMai NZ WeChat mini programme helps students make the most of their New Zealand experience, with advice on everything from finding a part-time job and knowing their rental rights to looking after their wellbeing and understanding Kiwi English. There are also stories from students about their lives – for instance, people sharing ideas on what to do during their summer in New Zealand.

    “We know that Chinese students prefer to connect with each other in their language, on the WeChat channel they trust,” says Faymie Li, Senior Advisor for Student Experience at ENZ.

    “We’re delighted to see how much they enjoy this digital platform and how quickly it’s growing. It’s great to be able to connect Chinese students to each other and to people who’re willing to help them out.”

    The WeChat mini programme has now run six livestreams hosted by experts, alumni and current international students on topics including employability, how to grow your network, and mental health and wellbeing. Students tuning in to watch can use the chat feature to ask questions.

    The livestreams have attracted a total of nearly 3,000 live views with over 18,000 engagements during the live events and, so far, more than 1,000 views afterwards.

    The WeChat mini programme has now added a new forum so that Chinese students and alumni can better share their life and study experiences and support one another. The text-based, moderated forum allows students to have their questions answered by their peers.

    A group of international students have signed on as ambassadors for the WeChat forum, including alumni from the Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia programme. One of the forum ambassadors, Mengdi Zhang, says she’s looking forward to connecting with newer students.

    “I am excited to be a student ambassador so that any students with unresolved questions can reach out. I can see my own past in the students’ questions, and I hope to help them through to a better experience in New Zealand,” she said.

    If you would like to know more about the NauMai NZ WeChat mini programme, contact faymie.li@enz.govt.nz. You can share it with others using the WeChat QR code.

  • New Zealand to begin opening up to vaccinated foreign nationals from 30 April 2022

    COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says New Zealand will be removing the requirement to go into managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) for most travellers in stages, but they will have to self-isolate for seven days, with pre-departure and post-arrival testing.

    Travellers will be able to enter New Zealand without going into MIQ in three steps:

    • Step 1 – opening to fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens and those residence-class visa holders and other travellers eligible under our current border settings, from Australia, from 11.59 pm on Sunday 16 January 2022, provided they have been in Australia or New Zealand for the past 14 days.
    • Step 2 – opening to fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens and those residence-class visa holders and other travellers eligible under our current border settings, from all but Very High-Risk countries, from 11.59 pm on Sunday 13 February 2022.

    • Step 3 – opening to fully vaccinated foreign nationals, possibly staged by visa category, from Saturday 30 April 2022 onwards.

    The Very High-Risk classification for Indonesia, Fiji, India, Pakistan and Brazil will be removed in early December 2021 and travellers from these countries will be able to enter New Zealand on the same basis as travellers from most other countries. Papua New Guinea will continue to be classified as Very High-Risk. 

    The three steps are a medium risk pathway. Those who do not meet the requirements for a medium risk pathway, but are still permitted to enter New Zealand under current border settings, will continue to enter MIQ upon arrival under the new regime of seven days in managed isolation, followed by three days of home isolation. This will include those who do not meet vaccination requirements, including unvaccinated New Zealand citizens and those from Very High-Risk countries.

    All travellers not required to go into MIQ will still require:

    • a negative pre-departure test
    • proof of being fully vaccinated
    • a passenger declaration about travel history
    • a day 0/1 test on arrival
    • a requirement to self-isolate for seven days, and
    • a final negative test before entering the community.

    “It’s very encouraging that as a country we are now in a position to move towards greater normality,” Minister Chris Hipkins said.

    “We always said we’d open in a controlled way, and this started with halving the time spent in MIQ to seven days. Retaining a seven-day isolate at home period for fully vaccinated travellers is an important phase in the reconnecting strategy to provide continued safety assurance.

    “These settings will continue to be reviewed against the risk posed by travellers entering New Zealand,” he said.

    “There continues to be a global pandemic with cases surging in Europe and other parts of the world, so we do need to be very careful when reopening the border.”

    Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao Chief Executive Grant McPherson has welcomed the New Zealand Government’s move towards opening the borders to international students.

    “This news is a great boost for the international education sector. We will keep education providers and international students up to date as we learn more on the detail of how the changes will work,” he said.

    The New Zealand Government will release further details on how self-isolation will be implemented in December 2021. There will be guidance on how people can travel from their arrival airport to their location of self-isolation and requirements for the places where they can self-isolate.

    For more information, read the media release from COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins – Reconnecting New Zealand – the next steps.

    For the latest official New Zealand Government information and advice, go to covid19.govt.nz

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