Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao has hosted a virtual event to showcase the country’s “education expertise, products and services”, ensuring that it remains “visible” despite its borders being closed.
Running from 14-18 June, the New Zealand Partners Workshop Week was billed as attracting more than 45 international speakers, across 234 sessions, and “more than 1,600 partners from the Asian region to collaborate on building the future of the international education sector”.
Among the partners were Asian government stakeholders, education institutes, agents and media from Greater China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
ENZ recognises that Asia is crucial to New Zealand’s international education sector, with 90,000 students from Asian countries coming to the country to study in 2019.
That figure represents 79% of all international student intake that year, in the order of university-level, high school, ITP, English Language School and PTE.
“This is a chance to show recognition to our valued international partners and stakeholders in Asia and to update this important network about ways we’re diversifying our offering to take New Zealand thinking to the world through new learning pathways, products and partnerships,” Education New Zealand chief executive Grant McPherson said of the event.
New Zealand’s high commissioner to Malayasia Pam Dunn added, “Engagement-driven events like Partners Week are a prime example of how international education is vital in maintaining our bilateral relationships with these important trade partners.”
Themes at the five-day event included ‘the digital transformation of New Zealand schools’; and ‘the internationalisation of New Zealand’s education system’ where there was discussion on the increased emphasis on work-based learning.
Speaking to The PIE News, Lisa Futschek general manager International at ENZ said the virtual format has “provided a flexible user experience”.
“Attendees are free to log in and out of sessions and the portal itself at any time, and the content will remain available to view for another month for all registered attendees.”
ENZ expects to see even more registrations and more engagement with our content over the next few week
“We’re looking to dig deeper into registration, attendee and engagement rates once the week’s events come to a close.
“This represents a key milestone in our internationalisation objectives”
“It is especially exciting to witness multiple business to business connections being forged by attendees and presenters in real time during this virtual event, connections which may not have happened otherwise. This is part of what it means to take a New Zealand Education to the world and represents a key milestone in our internationalisation objectives.”
Education New Zealand also announced a short courses partnership with digital education platform FutureLearn and a number of New Zealand universities, edtech providers and other specialist providers such as Media Design School and Tech Futures Lab.
This collaboration has facilitated access to online courses for 15 million global learners from one central platform.
