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  • Virtual events around the world

    Viet Nam: Career fair at Nguyen Sieu School (NSS)

    Representatives from eight New Zealand providers attended a career fair at Hanoi’s Nguyen Sieu School (NSS) last month.

    With no cases of community-transmitted COVID-19 for the past six weeks, Viet Nam has started to return to normal life. Schools have reopened just ahead of the end of the academic year.

    Usually, the NSS Career Fair only allows in-person representatives from foreign institutions. However, thanks to ENZ’s strong relationship with the school, our institutions were represented by proxy – either an education agent or alumnus. A representative from the institution was also permitted to join via video link.

    As a result, New Zealand’s presence was well ahead of our competitors like Canada (with two institutions), the UK (also two), or Australia (three).

    ENZ Viet Nam Market Manager Van Banh says this is a great example of how key in-market relationships will be critical as international education looks to conduct usual activity online.

    “This year’s NSS Career Fair was an exciting example of how we can incorporate digital technology into our in-person events,” she says.

    North America: NAFSA eShowcase

    For the first time ever, the world’s biggest B2B international education conference was held entirely online.

    More than 9,000 international educators from over 100 countries were expected to attend the conference in St. Louis, Missouri over 25-29 May before COVID-19 forced organisers to take it to the digital world. In the end, over 2,000 attended the eShowcase.

    Participants were able to visit ENZ’s virtual booth and engage either through chat or live video conversations at designated times.

    New Zealand universities and ITPs had dedicated times to host a ‘Virtual Showcase’, which is a mechanism by which NAFSA exhibitors presented, met or collaborated with attendees via a dedicated Zoom session.

    “The process of moving the largest in-person B2B international education conference in the world online has been a big learning curve, not only for ENZ and the individual booths and attendees, but for NAFSA themselves,” ENZ Director of Engagement – North America, DuBois Jennings, says.

    “With no live, conference-wide chatroom or method to see a list of conference participants it felt isolating at time on the booth, which is very different from the normal, in-person NAFSA conference. However, it has been a valuable learning experience as the international education industry looks for new ways to connect virtually.”

    The official NZ CEE schedule.

    China: China Education Expo (CEE)

    In late May, representatives from ENZ, all eight of New Zealand’s universities and the NZIST were offered a unique opportunity to engage directly with students from China and their parents.

    The annual China Education Expo (CEE) is one of the biggest events in the Chinese international education calendar. But ENZ Market Development Manager, Jane Liu, says this year’s engagement through the virtual platform is greater than they would usually expect.

    “Although ENZ has worked with the CEE for years, this is the first time we’ve been collaborated with them online. We can see this being useful to New Zealand institutions even after COVID-19.”

    Each university provided a one-hour presentation sharing their programmes and how they can work with interested students once COVID-19 precautions have been lifted. The NZIST representative also gave a detailed introduction to the reforms the ITP sector has recently gone through.

    The webinars have garnered a combined total of 1000 views, and have been recorded and hosted on WeChat so that students and parents can watch them at their leisure.

  • From the Chief Executive: Positive steps for international education

    Initially focused on Asia, the Prime Minister’s scholarships started in 2013. Since then, more than 2,400 Kiwis have benefited from the experience of living in an Asian or Latin American country, developing personal connections, cultural understanding and global citizenship skills as well as gaining new perspectives in their chosen field of study. These scholarships are a great example of the two-way nature of international education – it’s about the opportunity for us as New Zealanders to learn, as well as for us to contribute.   

    Over the years the scholarships have evolved and this is set to continue in the future, following two recent wānanga with Māori partners. The first wānanga explored what ‘global citizenship’ means from a Māori world view. The second wānanga discussed the Prime Minister’s Scholarship programme, how to grow Māori participation in it, and how to support rangatahi through creating programme connections with iwi and the Māori economy, so the programme provides greater value for Māori. Alongside participants from a range of iwi and sector interests, representatives from the newly formed Kāhui Kaupapa also attended – Māori alumni of the Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia and Latin America. This work is part of ENZ’s long-term programme to build partnerships with iwi, Māori and Māori providers of education services, to transform the understanding of international education and ensure the education system delivers with, and for, Māori in the international context. 

    We have also made good progress with plans for inbound travel for international education this month. Universities are currently using our new portal system to nominate international students for their 1,450 places as part of the fourth cohort of 5,000 students. Working with the Ministry of Education, we are now assessing applications for places received from schools, PTEs and English language schools and will let them know their individual place allocations next week, so that they can start sending in their nominations, along with Te Pūkenga. Immigration New Zealand is due to begin processing the first formal requests for travel under this border exception by mid-April, in time for a mid-year study start. 

    In related news, travel from visa waiver countries such as Japan and South Korea has been brought forward two months and will now reopen from 2 May 2022. Students from these countries will be able to come to New Zealand for short courses of up to three months, which is good news for the sector, including English language schools.   

    While the borders were closed, online education offerings assumed a greater role. This sets us up well to continue to provide a more varied and resilient international education offering in the future.  Phase two of a pilot programme to promote New Zealand-branded online education to the world starts in June and interested education providers are invited to a webinar on 31 March 2022 to find out more. This phase of the pilot will continue our partnership with FutureLearn, a well-established online platform with a significant global audience. 

    COVID-19 has affected our daily lives in many ways, including making virtual meetings the norm. When we held our regular peak body and regional gatherings last week, it was noticeable that a greater degree of formality tends to prevail online, and it’s much harder to get lively discussions underway.  We really value and need to hear from our industry partners, and so I would welcome any suggestions for how we can make sure that these meetings enable robust discussion and exchange of ideas.   

    This month we welcomed Ziena Jalil to her first meeting as an ENZ Board member. Ziena was once an international student and is now an award-winning business and public sector leader, with 20 years’ experience working in New Zealand and Asia. Ziena brings enormous expertise in education, international relations and marketing, which will greatly benefit ENZ and the wider international education sector as we work to rebuild post-COVID.  

    This month we also published our 2020/21 Annual Report, which had been delayed by a shortage of auditors, related to COVID-19. The report is available on our website here and highlights the impacts of COVID-19 on the sector and our joint efforts to maintain an ongoing commitment to international education during this challenging period. 

    Okea Ururoatia! – Keep striving forward!  

    Grant McPherson

  • Naluri Margaret Ziena Govenor General

  • Education initiatives during Indian President's visit

    President Shri Pranab Mukherjee of India and Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister, Steven Joyce, launched the New Zealand Excellence Awards (NZEA) on Monday 2 May to an audience of 150 Indian students and staff from the AUT. The awards are the outcome of a joint campaign between all eight universities and ENZ, and offers scholarships to Indian students to study Level 7+ courses in the fields of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), business and fashion.

    The NZEA scholarships were promoted in India at a high profile media event attended by ENZ Chief Executive, Grant McPherson; the NZ High Commissioner to India, HE Grahame Morton and ENZ Brand Ambassador, Stephen Fleming on 4 May 2016.  

  • Dr Sissons 2 web 500px

  • Update from Immigration New Zealand

    Peak processing season in full swing 

    Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has seen an increase in applications submitted during September 2024, ahead of the 1 October visa fee and levy increase and because of our ‘apply early’ messaging.  

    In September 2023, approximately 3,104 international student visa applications were submitted and in September 2024, approximately 6,893 international student visa applications have been submitted, an increase of 122%. 

    Now that we are in our peak processing period, we expect these processing times to grow as we receive a higher volume of applications. Students should get their visa application in at least 3 months before they plan to travel to New Zealand for the first semester of 2025. 

    By now, most students should have received an offer of place from their chosen education provider. Anyone expecting to study in the first term of 2025 should apply now.  

    We acknowledge that some students who are waiting on key study documentation are unable to apply 3 months ahead. In these cases, they should apply as soon as they have all of their documents, but they need to be aware that late applications may not be processed in time for them to start studying.  

    Immigration New Zealand has three student processing sites in New Zealand, and has allocated more staff to processing student visas, compared to last year’s peak. 

    Ensure you submit a complete application 

    To avoid delays, we encourage students, agents and advisers to follow the advice in our student visa information sheets. If they do not include all the required documents when they submit their application, it may be declined.  

    Applications that have a statement of purpose letter written by the student, telling us about their personal circumstances and plans in New Zealand, help us assess their intent. If a student intends to apply for another visa after study, they should declare this. Students are allowed to apply for another visa after they finish studying.    

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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.

  • English New Zealand’s new Accredited Pathway Assessment opens up cross-sector collaboration

    Bridge International College, Kaplan International Languages and Languages International are now able to offer the Accredited Pathway Assessment (APA).

    Although there are already agreements between individual English New Zealand schools and universities, the APA puts in place a structure for acceptance of proficiency across all of the universities, English New Zealand executive director Kim Renner says.

    “This will enable greater collaboration between English Language schools and the universities,” Renner says. “With inevitable changes coming for the export education industry due to COVID-19, seamless pathways into further study and close collaboration will become more important than ever before.”

    In Australia, the rate of students who transitioned to further study is significant – according to a report released by the Australian government in January, 54 percent of English language students go on to attend an Australian university or vocational training provider. Anecdotally, we know the rate in New Zealand is much lower. There is room for New Zealand to encourage more of the 20,000 plus students who study at unfunded English language schools in New Zealand to make much more of pathway opportunities.

    Accredited schools will use the APA to attract those students who are interested in studying at a New Zealand university, but may not meet the current English Language standards.

    The APA is also a way that English Language schools can prepare students for New Zealand’s academic teaching style.

    “The assessment is built into a school’s teaching – it’s not a one-off test,” Renner says. “Key goals are to increase cross-sector collaboration and provide a great student experience.”

    This announcement is a result of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by English New Zealand and Universities New Zealand in June last year. The APA is only available to English New Zealand member schools.

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