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New Zealand Tertiary College India celebrates graduates
The ceremony was held in Mumbai on Sunday, 5 November, with NZTC Chief Executive Selena Fox travelling from New Zealand to share in the festivities with graduates and their families.
“This seventh NZTC India graduation is an extraordinary achievement for a New Zealand early childhood education college,” she said.
“NZTC is committed to continuing to offer flexible, accessible, high quality early childhood curriculums and support to teachers of young children in India, and we are incredibly honoured to do so.”
The college celebrated the expansion of its postgraduate offerings by honouring Helen Sharrock, the first graduate of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Leadership and Management). A number of special commendation awards were also presented to graduates who excelled in their studies, with the most outstanding student for the Certificate in Early Childhood Education (Level 5) awarded jointly to NZTC’s own staff member Sushma Nair and Sheeba Roshinkumar.
Graduate speaker Karuna Mangharam shared her study journey with fellow graduates, pursuing a Bachelor of Education (ECE) to support her directing of a pre-primary school that she and her sister started in 2010.
“I found the NZTC degree to be most suitable for me because it was an international college with a local presence. I couldn’t have gone ahead course after course if I didn’t have the support from the NZTC support team,” said Mangharam.
2017 was a big year for NZTC. It celebrated its 35-year anniversary, and expanded its programme offerings beyond early childhood teacher education to health and wellbeing programmes.
ENZ working with INZ
John Goulter, General Manager, Stakeholder and Communications, says “ENZ has been continuing to monitor international and domestic market reaction to student visa processing delays being experienced”.
John confirms “ENZ is working with INZ to find ways to help providers through the current situation. Both agencies have developed a joint work programme. High level deliverables have been agreed and detailed planning is underway”.
Priority areas for the work programme include an overarching plan focused on communicating what INZ is doing to address processing pressures and how INZ and ENZ can align activities to help providers deliver on the goals of the International Education Strategy – to attract high quality students – including:
- Information-sharing in relation to ENZ marketing strategies
- Developing visa application checklists to help students provide complete applications.
- Early communication of concerns/issues identified that could affect the sector (e.g. emerging immigration risks identified in markets, where appropriate)
- Co-developing market reports to help the sector with key information about priority markets
Ask New Anything
Campaign page: https://www.studyinnewzealand.govt.nz/asknewanything
NZ’s second big global digital campaign of 2019 launched on 7 October with our students at the heart of it.
The campaign will be promoted digitally in our key markets for 8 weeks. Campaign-related content and messaging will remain relevant and live on our channels for the foreseeable future.
The campaign will be the first time the refreshed Think New brand has been widely used in digital channels.
Campaign Strategy
The main objective of the campaign is to challenge perceptions of New Zealand by increasing awareness of the country as a high-quality study destination. The campaign aims to achieve this by inviting our target audiences in 14 international markets to question what they know about New Zealand.
Key markets that will be reached by the campaign are:
- Brazil
- Colombia
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Philippines
- Thailand
- UK
- USA
- Vietnam
- Indonesia
The campaign aims to increase New Zealand’s standing as the preferred study destination amongst our target audiences in these key markets.
For more information about ENZ’s target markets and the general digital campaign strategy, and New Zealand education providers can access the 2019 ENZ Digital Marketing Calendar on IntelliLab.
The creative concept and technical execution of this campaign will push ENZ into new territory for its marketing campaigns and award-winning digital strategy.
Utilising 100 short videos, a variety of digital media placements, Tohu the chatbot, a range of social media channels including a peer-to-peer Facebook group and Instagram Live sessions hosted by our Kiwi Ambassadors, the campaign embodies the authenticity and bold NEW thinking of the Think New brand.
A bespoke campaign strategy has been developed for China, making use of the same campaign creative concept and content, but delivered through the channels we know our audiences in China use and interact with the most.
ENZ invites and encourages our New Zealand education sector partners and education agents to participate in the campaign by sharing content and aligning your own messaging with those of the campaign and the Think New brand.
The campaign tool kit below provides more information around how your organisation can leverage the campaign.
Creative concept
Brand research tells us there is generally low awareness of New Zealand internationally, and where there is awareness it’s often based on incorrect perceptions of quality.
The creative concept of the Ask New Anything campaign seeks to address this by answering prospective students’ burning questions authentically and honestly, using unscripted video responses from current international students.
We started by researching the most used Google search terms relevant to studying in New Zealand, as well as the most asked questions on our Study in New Zealand chatbot Tohu. We combined this hard data with anecdotal questions from prospective and current students around what they want to know/what they wish they had known, and key brand messages we hoped to get across to our audiences.
From this we narrowed down to a list of 100 questions and filmed videos with international and New Zealand students, alumni, a teacher, a parent, and a New Zealand employer providing the answers. These videos form the basis of the campaign.
We also know that word of mouth is a key influence on student decision making. The Ask New Anything campaign not only offers pre-recorded Q&As with current students, but also gives prospective students the opportunity to talk directly to current students through a new Facebook group and scheduled Instagram Live events.
All of this results in a much more interactive campaign than anything ENZ has previously done. We’re not broadcasting a message to students; we’re asking them to start a conversation, putting prospective students themselves at the centre of the campaign.
Technical execution
A typical digital media campaign uses creative digital ad placements on social media, relevant websites and search engines to drive traffic through to a campaign landing page on a website.
Ask New Anything goes well beyond this, using new technology and a broad range of social media tools to be a true omni-channel campaign. The resulting immersive and pleasantly unexpected experience will help the Think New brand stand out.
The marketing activity and technology being used in this campaign includes:
- Tohu the chatbot – Tohu was launched on the Study in New Zealand website in 2018, on Facebook Messenger in early 2019, and on the NauMai NZ website in July 2019. Tohu is the centrepiece of the Ask New Anything campaign as it represents the technology through which prospective students can really ask any question they want. From the launch of the Ask New Anything campaign, Tohu will be able to respond to 100 of the most frequently asked questions with one of the short videos created for the campaign
- Facebook group - Should a question be asked that Tohu cannot answer, prospective students will be invited to join a Facebook group where they can ask real students their questions in real time. The Facebook group will be managed and moderated by our Kiwi Ambassadors.
- Instagram Live – Throughout the campaign, a select group of Kiwi Ambassadors will host a series of Instagram Live events. These events will be designed and scheduled to suit the key international regions we are targeting in the campaign.
- Campaign landing page – There will be a campaign landing page on the Study in New Zealand website. Tohu the chatbot will be the main focus of this page.
- Social media – Beyond the Facebook group, Instagram Live sessions and use of Tohu on Facebook Messenger, all of ENZ’s student-facing social media channels will be driving the campaign messages. Campaign content will be shared on Facebook, and YouTube and Instagram will feature strongly for both organic and paid media content.
- Database marketing – The database marketing strategy for the campaign ensures we are reaching all our currently engaged audiences, and nurturing new leads throughout their decision-making journey. Personalised email campaigns will be sent to members of the Study in New Zealand, My StudyNZ and NauMai NZ communities, and to anyone who signs up throughout the campaign period.
The campaign in China
Because our audiences in China use different digital platforms to our other markets, the Ask New Anything campaign will follow a different strategy in China.
Separate research has been undertaken to identify the most-asked questions for prospective international students in China. Based on this, the most relevant videos will be translated into Chinese and integrated into a campaign rollout on our China platforms:
Paid media:
- WeChat
- Zhihu (Zhihu is China’s version of Quora. In classical Chinese, "Zhīhū" means "Know?". Chinese-language internet users nowadays increasingly resort to Zhihu for expert knowledge and insights into various topics.
Owned media:
Tohu the chatbot does not exist on our Chinese platforms, so the China Ask New Anything campaign makes use of the question/answer format in a different way, posing questions to our audience and then supplying key information based on their response.
On the Zhihu platform we will post questions for both Kiwi Ambassadors and users to answer. Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) will also be recruited to support the campaign and both ask and answer questions about studying in New Zealand.
Messaging and Brand
The campaign concept and the technical execution of the campaign both contribute to the overall brand message of ‘I am New’. It showcases our innovative new thinking and captures New Zealand’s values of societal openness, transparency and manaakitanga.
Through this campaign, we want to show that New Zealand is an inclusive, collaborative and progressive environment where students are challenged and supported to reach their full potential.
Our new Think New brand strategy and creative approach position our international education brand for success and redefine what a quality education looks like and means.
Sector representation and localisation
The 100 question and answer videos have been carefully planned to ensure a good global representation of our markets. Care has been taken to match the talent to questions based region. So where a question is most important to a certain region, the talent has been matched to that region to ensure the most relevant response.
The videos feature 18 different individuals representing a spread of sectors and markets. We have included students from all the key markets we are targeting in the campaign. A teacher, employer, Kiwi student and parent are also included.
In the Facebook group and Instagram Live sessions, prospective students will be able to converse with Kiwi Ambassadors in local language – either directly or with the help of Facebook’s automatic translation technology.
Toolkit
Throughout the campaign duration New Zealand education will have an increased digital presence in the 13 target markets listed above.
New Zealand education providers and education agents are encouraged to leverage this campaign activity for your own marketing strategies.
Here is a toolkit of resources and suggested actions to help you get started:
- Ensure your institution profile on the Study in New Zealand website is up to date. Follow these step-by-step instructions to find out how. Please note you will be required a login to access this link.
- Register for the ENZ Brand Lab. There are over 1,000 images, videos and more available on the Brand Lab for you to download and use in your marketing.
- Read this article about how to leverage ENZ digital campaigns. You will need to be registered and signed in to the Brand Lab to access it.
- Share the Q&A videos from the campaign on your social media channels. ENZ will be creating a spreadsheet with all the YouTube links to make this easy for you navigate and choose the most relevant videos for your audiences. Watch this space or sign up to the Brand Lab to get a notification when this becomes available.
- Download ENZ’s 2019 Digital Marketing Calendar from IntelliLab. The calendar explains our key dates and strategies for each of our target markets. You will need to be registered and signed in to IntelliLab to access this.
- If you are an education agent, join ENZ’s AgentLab. This new platform was launched this year. Gain access to online training courses, news, webinars and ENZ updates.
The regional network – bright partners
The full-day workshop was a great way to share regional international education developments and aspirations with the network. The programme included speakers from central government agencies such as the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), alongside SIEBA, ICEF as well as presentations from regional representatives.
Simon Anderson, ChristchurchNZ’s Job Ready Project Manager said the day was highly valuable.
“I was impressed at the positive and collaborative atmosphere from all participants, leading to meaningful conversation and debate throughout.”
ENZ Regional Project Manager Sarah Gauthier said the workshop was an effective way to better understand how integral our regions are to supporting better profiling of international education across New Zealand.
The RPP is a strong promoter and enabler of New Zealand’s variety of regional study locations, “while being the platform from where we engage with real New Zealanders about why and how international education is important to all of our futures,” Sarah said.
“Our Regional Network works hard to develop and promote their points of difference and service provision to international students – so that students can better understand and choose the location that best suits their identity and ambitions.
“Our regional partners work closely with their local media and stakeholders to tell compelling student stories and other announcements that help their community to really connect with international education and the benefits it could have for them,” Sarah said.
Regional initiatives like the ‘work ready’ programmes for international students are key points of difference that can attract the students that can become a region’s future talent force.
If you haven’t connected with the Regional Network – now’s your chance!
Head here for more information and details.
Register for China vocational education forum
The forum brings together government agencies, and industry and education leaders in technical and vocational education from New Zealand and China.
The aim is for all those involved to share their experiences in developing training institutions, strengthen collaboration between the two countries, and plan the development of model programmes in the sector.
This is the 6^th forum which has been held annually in either China or New Zealand under the auspices of the China-New Zealand Vocational Education and Training Model Programme.
With at least 52 senior leaders from higher vocational education institutions in China set to attend, ENZ Regional Director China & North Asia, Adele Bryant, says the event is a unique opportunity for New Zealand vocational and technical education leaders to demonstrate how their institutions are fostering critical and creative thinking in students.
“With ‘The Entrepreneurial Institution’ theme, this year’s forum is a great platform to showcase New Zealand’s strengths in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship,” Adele said.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to share ideas, network and form relationships with leaders from China at a time when they are increasingly looking to New Zealand for solutions.”
A range of leaders in vocational education in New Zealand – from CEOs and International Directors to anyone involved in developing innovation and entrepreneurship strategies at vocational training institutions – are invited to present at the forum.
Registration is limited to 50 delegates from New Zealand, with early bird registrations closing 31 August.
For more information and to register for the symposium, click here.
Chinese students engage with My StudyNZ WeChat

In October, ENZ brought My StudyNZ to WeChat, a social media platform with more than one billion users.

Students enter their study intentions into the programme and receive suggestions of institutions or courses that closely match. This enables ENZ to drive high value leads to New Zealand institutions and ENZRA agents from China.

Lucia Alarcon, ENZ’s Digital Programme Manager, said as ENZ has had a WeChat account since 2014, it made sense to build on the existing social community which is easier for Chinese students to use than the China version of the Study in New Zealand website.

“It has enabled us to engage with students in a more personal way, and to share tailored information. It also provides a more seamless user experience for the student, allowing them to assess study options using their mobile phones, and to contact institutions directly if they want.

“While it’s early days, we’re already seeing high-quality leads coming through.”

My StudyNZ China has gained strong interest from Chinese students, particularly those with an interest in tertiary and secondary institutions:

ENZ’s efforts in China have included a media campaign using WeChat banner ads with Future Proof key messages and an invitation to join ENZ’s social community on WeChat. Seen by more than three million prospective students and parents so far, this has helped increase ENZ’s WeChat followers by 25 percent.

“Our Future Proof Campaign and Wechat development are part of a wider programme of work in China. As we continue investing in our China audience, we will also find new ways to reach students and share useful information personalised to their study plans,” said Lucia.
Tauranga welcomes over 770 international students
Anne Young, Regional Manager of Education Tauranga, said it has run a welcome ceremony for new international students for many years but due to space restrictions of venues, this has previously only included a select group of 200 participants.
“This year we wanted to include all students to show the whole Bay of Plenty community how large our international student cohort is. We secured a large convention space (850 seats) and invited all of our new students to the welcome!”
The new students, who range from five years old to tertiary students in their twenties, and represent 25 countries, were treated to dance and musical performances from Indian, Chinese and Korean cultural groups, as well as a rousing kapa haka performance from Tauranga Intermediate’s Te Whanau o Te Maro.
A number of speakers were also on hand to welcome them, including a representative from Immigration New Zealand and Mayor of Tauranga city, Greg Brownless. Mayor Brownless shared his own personal connection with the international community through his Taiwanese wife and children, and said it was great to see so many students from different countries in the region.
“You help bring the world to our doorstep, you teach our Kiwi students about your life, your country and your culture. This is so important as we grow the values of global citizenship amongst our community,” he said.
Anne said it was a very important event for the region.
“We not only want to ensure our international students feel welcome as they embark on their study journey but also showcase the many people across many organisations within our region who are here to support them and ensure that they have a positive experience here.”
It can be particularly daunting for primary school families to send young students overseas for school, so Education Tauranga runs a special welcome tour for them.
Held over two days, children and their parents were treated to a powhiri, complete with a chance to mingle over morning tea. They then had a taste of Kiwi cultural activities such as visits to local sites, eating fish ‘n chips and lessons in harakeke (flax weaving).
“It was clear that the international families were impressed – they were smiling and snapping photos to share with family back home,” said Anne.
A Brazil market update
This trend is mirrored here in New Zealand which has experienced growth from Brazil in all sectors over the last three years.
In the following market update, ENZ’s Senior Market Development Manager, Ana Azevedo, and International Market Manager, Julian Ashby, talk about recent initiatives that shine a positive light on the Brazilian market.
Internationalising postgraduate departments

The opening of the Academic Cooperation Seminar. Seated from left: Professor Jose Alexander Araujo, CAPES, Professor Hernan Chaimovich, FAPESP, ENZ’s Ana Azevedo and Caroline Bilkey, New Zealand Ambassador. At the lecturn is emcee Mr Pedro Marchi, former director of LAE in Brazil.

Following the recent hugely successful Latin American roadshow, ENZ hosted an Academic Cooperation Seminar – New Zealand & Brazil last month in Sao Paulo to promote collaboration between New Zealand and Brazilian universities.
Five of the eight New Zealand universities attended, sending nine senior academics to the event. From the Brazilian side, 17 universities were represented by 38 academics and international staff.
Ana said the aim of the forum was to capitalise on the recent announcement by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (their acronym is CAPES – which it should be noted is not the same as New Zealand’s CAPEs), which has established a programme to help internationalise Brazilian universities. The Program for Internationalisation of Brazilian Postgraduate Programs (BPP) is a successor to the earlier undergraduate programme known as ‘Science without Borders’.

Professor Caroline Daley of University of Auckland

CAPES is investing USD$350 million over the next four years to internationalise the universities’ postgraduate departments. Up to 40 Brazilian universities will be selected by CAPES to participate and proposals involving international partners are due in May.
For the next four years, this initiative will be the focus of the Brazilian universities.

From left: Professor Roberta Campos, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ - COPPEAD) and Professor Suzane Strehlau, School of Advertising and Marketing, ESPM.

The New Zealand Ambassador to Brazil, Caroline Bilkey, attended the forum as did representatives of FAPESP, the São Paulo Research Foundation.
“Successful proposals could greatly enhance New Zealand’s engagement with the region,” said Ana.
Ana acknowledged the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in contributing funding and logistical support to ensure the New Zealand academics could travel to Brazilian universities after the event to solidify partnerships.
Future Proof campaign shows high digital demand
Interest from Brazilian students in New Zealand can be further seen through the results of the Future Proof campaign that is running on multiple ENZ channels.
Brazil currently has the second most active users globally from the campaign with more than 10,000 views to the Study in New Zealand website and 1,000 referrals to New Zealand institutions’ websites.
“This demonstrates that whilst the Brazilian audience is generally very happy to view content, they are also engaging with the message to a higher extent than normal,” said Julian.
“The more we learn about Brazilian students from campaigns like this the more we can actively target those most receptive to our messages,” he said.
Activating media in Brazil
At the start of April, ENZ hosted two senior (rival) journalists from two of Brazil’s most influential media outlets, Exame and Folha de Sao Paulo, on a one-week trip through New Zealand.
The journalists sought to answer two key questions:
1. How had New Zealand become the #1 ranked country in the world for preparing students for the future?
2. How had New Zealand made international education such an important industry?
Julian noted the trip therefore provided an opportunity to highlight key messages to the Brazilian market.
“The journalists visited and interviewed teachers, principals, students (both New Zealand and Brazilian), officials and lecturers across the state education system and the results have been very pleasing,” he said
Some of the key observations about New Zealand’s education system from Fabio Takahashi of Folha de Sao Paulo were:
Ask three before me
Children are encouraged to ask their peers for help before approaching the teacher, the net effect of which frees teachers up for dedicated one-on-one time with students and demonstrates to students that teachers aren’t the only holders of knowledge.
Learning & teaching same word in Maori (Ako)
A common refrain from schools is that students aren’t there to be taught but to learn, and that teachers foster this from day one. Fabio latched onto the Maori word that symbolises this – Ako.
Schools as staging grounds for tertiary study
High schools provide a high level of autonomy to students in picking their own career path and mirrors tertiary study (choose courses, get credit). This is unheard of in Brazil.
Freedom vs pets
One of the most powerful interviews conducted was with a year 13 Brazilian student, who started off stating that NZ teachers were authoritarian and cold compared to the more ‘huggy’ first-name-basis Brazilian teachers. However, as the student talked, he began to reflect on how much independence and responsibility he had in New Zealand bringing him to the realisation that his life in Brazil was like that of a pet…his parents fed him, housed him, ran him around, made all his choices for him, while in New Zealand he was free to go where he liked if he could figure out how to get there and how to pay for it. You could see the pride he took in this epiphany that he was actually free and capable of making life choices.
Toddlers with tools
As you’ll see from the photo in the published article above, the other thing that impressed Fabio was the 4-year-olds armed with real saws and hammers!
The answer then for how we do it was revealed through every level of the education system. Children are encouraged to be active learners and this is achieved through a national curriculum that allows flexibility for each community to adapt aspects of education to their own surroundings.
Fabio produced a full-page article in the largest national newspaper in Brazil that fully articulates why New Zealand is the #1 country in the world for preparing students for the future.
Articles published to date include: “A paradise for learning”, “How teens build successful New Zealand businesses”, “These two MBAs in NZ have 100% employability”, “Brazilian lecturer and PhD student create start-ups in NZ”.
The reach of Exame’s online readership is in the 20 million range whilst the print edition of Folha De Sao Paulo enjoys 300,000 subscribers.
For comments or questions on this report, please contact Ana ana.azevedo@enz.govt.nz (Brasila-based) or Julian julian.ashby@enz.govt.nz (Wellington-based).
Register for ENZ’s market intelligence webinar

The webinars offer local market updates and insights, competitor analysis, external expert views relevant to the secondary and tertiary sectors, as well as updates on ENZ’s upcoming promotional activities and Immigration New Zealand visa processing.

ENZ’s Director Asia, John Laxon, said the China industry webinar is a great opportunity for New Zealand education providers to receive local in-market intelligence from ENZ staff and independent in-market experts, which will ensure organisations’ in-market recruitment efforts are well targeted.

“Our 2019 webinar series will provide market insights and updates from across the Asia region, taking into account the strong industry interest in the 2018 series.”

Please register below:
China webinar 29 July, 10am local time/2pm New Zealand time
Click here to register
ATEED launches new Auckland strategy to guide visitor economy
ATEED General Manager Destination, Steve Armitage, says while more visitors are good news economically, the growth comes with challenges.
“People travel to Auckland to experience the many things our region has to offer. For some, it’s the world-class food and wine; for others, it’s the sporting, cultural and business events; or international students, who come from around the world to study at our learning institutions,” said Steve.
“It’s important that we continue to attract visitors to support and create jobs and amenities that benefit locals and visitors…so that Auckland is better off not just economically, but also socially and environmentally.”
The strategy outlines six strategic imperatives and key focus areas, and a comprehensive list of actions to deliver these, with two directly relating to international education:
- A Captivating Place: A region that entices visitors to stay longer and that locals love more than ever. Actions include developing an international student visitor plan.
- A Skilled Place: A region where more young men and women are choosing globally relevant careers in the visitor economy. Actions include developing a visitor sector training and employment strategy for youth and enhancing standards across the service sector.
Destination AKL 2025 was guided by an industry leadership group, and involved extensive consultation including interviews, workshops and discussions, as well as international benchmarking and surveys.
ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson, who was part of the industry leadership group, says that ATEED is showing real leadership in the way it is looking at its visitor plan.
He said this is evident in the way the strategy is based around destination management and not just attraction. This should ensure visitors are acknowledged as an asset to the Auckland region – a perspective that will reflect positively on the experience visitors go on to have in Auckland.
“International students are an important part of the visitor community and we are delighted that the strategy reflects this through the inclusion of an international student visitor plan.”
"The strategy has involved significant cross-industry collaboration to get to this point, and the plan is to keep this going. We are very optimistic about the direction Auckland is heading in and are looking forward to working with Auckland to bring it to life.”
Click here to read or download Destination AKL 2025.