Conference and Awards

If you haven’t already registered for Conference, it’s time you did! There is a full 3 day programme with plenty for every sector.

The Programme is HERE

Register HERE

And if you think that your institution has a good international programme and is doing a fine job, then why not enter the Awards? The entry process is straightforward – check out the nomination forms HERE

Its here! The evolved ‘New Zealand Educated’ brand was launched last Wednesday at a function at Parliament. (The same function also included a welcome forum for the NZIDRS Doctoral students, so there was good ‘function synergy’!)

The Brand was warmly received by the audience of about 150, and Brian Richards of BRR Ltd and Rob Stevens did a great job of taking the audience through the steps of consultation, development and delivery. Hon. Dr Michael Cullen did the honours by flicking the switch and showing the brand and its seven core values of Lively, Trusted, Welcoming, Connected, Adventurous, Personal and Inventive.

Pictures of the launch function are HERE

But what you really want is to be able to access the new logo, templates and files – please contact Education New Zealand

Immigration Fees for International Students

The Department of Labour recently undertook a review of the fees that are charged for visa processing.  Twenty-three sets of fees were reviewed, and the full list is contained in the New Zealand Gazette.  The three fees of most interest are contained in the table below, but in summary, they will now be: 

• NZ - $200 for manual permit ($70 for electronic permit);
• Pacific - $150; 
• Rest of world - $200. 

That means that the onshore manual permit fee is going up by $80, the Pacific visa fee is increasing by $10, and the Rest of world visa fee is remaining the same.  The new fees will come into effect on the last Monday in July 2007.

While it is pleasing that the “Rest of the World” and electronic permits are to remain unchanged, Education New Zealand is concerned at the 70% increase in the fees charged for New Zealand processing.  Maintaining a competitive advantage in immigration policy and practice is critical to the industry – and fees are very much part of that equation.  

With this in mind, institutions may be interested to learn that Education New Zealand is shortly to commission a repeat of the highly successful Immigration Benchmarking Research Project that ENZ commissioned in 2005.  This project will benchmark NZ’s immigration policy against those of our key competitors (ie: Canada, USA, UK, Australia etc), including immigration fees and changes.  This exercise will support industry lobbying, as well as providing market information for providers. 

Immigration Update: Viet Nam

There have been many concerns raised over the immigration environment for students coming out of Viet Nam, and this issue was discussed at some length at the recent PRG meeting.

In country they have been working hard to improve the situation, and Peter Healey (who manages the in country office on behalf of DoL) has sent through an update. Read his report HERE

At the NZ end, we have been making representations to DoL in support of a more responsive environment across all sectors. This issue has a bearing on Viet Nam’s status as a depth market, and the South East Asia Commercial Development Group will discuss this at their forthcoming meeting.

DoL have already responded. They note that “As a result of the Australian changes in assessment level, we undertook our own assessment of visas issued by Ho Chi Minh.  Of the 337 applications we looked at we noted only 2 had adverse outcomes from an immigration perspective.  Given this we have relaxed the documents we require with student visa applications and announced this at the education fairs.”

“The main differences are not requiring personal details such as the CV and family book and also reducing the requirements for evidence of funds.”

Click HERE for the full text of the old and revised versions.

New Staff in Tokyo and Shanghai
NZTE Tokyo has recently appointed a new staff member, Kylie Fitzgerald, to the role of Trade Development Executive.  Kylie will undertake generic promotion and marketing work in Japan on behalf of Education New Zealand. 
Kylie holds New Zealand BA and BCom (Honours) degrees and has experienced life as an international student by studying for a year at a Japanese high school and university. She took time out from her employment at the Ministry of Tourism in Wellington to work in the New Zealand pavilion at the Aichi Expo in 2005. For the past year she has been working for a corporate training firm in Tokyo.

Echo Tan has taken over responsibility of Education New Zealand’s generic promotion and marketing work from Catherine Liu at NZTE Shanghai. Before joining NZTE, Echo worked for the University of Waikato Management School (WMS) as their International Manager for five years. Echo was responsible for managing and developing the joint programmes between the university and Chinese institutions and has extensive experience in the education sector. 

PACE 2007

Malaysian Education Fairs, 18 - 23 August
The second series of New Zealand Education fairs in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Penang and Kota Kinabalu are coming up. The two Fair series in Malaysia are the centerpiece of the Malaysian depth strategy, and with the number of new students from Malaysia up by 20% from last year they are playing their part.
Planning and organisation has already begun so to ensure inclusion in all printed fair materials please register now!  
For more information, please click HERE or contact Laurette

Philippines Agent Visit, 19 - 28 August This year is the second year that ENZ has invited agents from the Philippines on an inbound visit to New Zealand.  The four potential agents for this visit are listed at HERE.  Involvement is particularly relevant for tertiary providers, especially ITPs, PTEs and universities, the agents have mentioned a strong interest in nursing courses. ** Registrations close 13 July 2007 ** For further information please go to the above link or contact Rahael

Indian and Sri Lankan Education Fairs, 30 August - 11 September
The second and bigger series of Education Fairs in India will commence on 30 August. This year the range of cities has been extended to cover more regions. The eight cities include Chandigarh, New Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. 
A website for this market has been created to keep those involved up to date with Indian focused activities and meetings. This can be viewed HERE
These events involve a great deal of pre fair organisation, advertising and promotional activities so please register now to ensure your institutional details are included in all promotional material. The registration has been extended to Monday 9 September. To register please click HERE. If there are any difficulties in meeting this deadline please contact Laurette  
Those attending these fairs should also consider participating in the Sri Lanka, Colombo fair on Sunday 16 September following the Indian events.  More details of this can be found HERE               
If you have any further queries regarding activities in India or Sri Lanka, please contact Laurette DDI: 04 917 0870

Taiwanese Agent Visit, 9 - 18 September
Interested in making new contacts with Taiwanese agents?  Agents interested in the Tertiary, Secondary and ELS sectors will be traveling around New Zealand in September.  Register online to invite the agents to your institution. For more information on this activity and please click HERE or contact Rahael

Mixed-European Inbound Agents, 9 - 20 September 2007
Four European agents will visit the country in September as part of a familiarisation trip to New Zealand. We are looking at inviting agents from Italy (possibly from MAGIC TRIPS/ ANGLOMAGIC SRL), Russia, Czech Republic and Austria. More information is available HERE or contact Genevieve

Taiwan Virtual Fair, early October - late November 2007
Virtual fairs are internet (generic NZ and institutional) advertising. The last Taiwan Virtual Fair was held from late March to late May and showed a total of 193,953 hits, an increase of 25.5% over the previous virtual fair in October 2006. This demonstrates that in Taiwan, virtual fairs are an effective way of raising the profile of New Zealand education. 
** Registrations close 24 August 2007 ** For more information click HERE or contact Genevieve

China CCIEE Fairs, 20 October - 4 November 2007
The second of the 2007 China fair series’ runs from 20 October to 4 November.  The New Zealand group is likely to attend fairs in the following seven cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Wuhan, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu and Shenzhen. The cost for each fair is currently being finalised, so if you're interested please check the website regularly for updates HERE or contact Genevieve

EXPOLINGUA Berlin, 16 - 18 November 2007
EXPOLINGUA Berlin is the only international fair for languages and cultures in Germany. More than 150 exhibitors from over twenty countries present products and services related to foreign-language education. In 2006, 156 exhibitors from 27 countries attracted over 15,000 visitors.
EXPOLINGUA celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 2007 and is proud to present Australia and New Zealand as its Guests of Honour. Being the host country will attract great publicity for New Zealand in Germany before and during the event. As Guests of Honour, New Zealand participants have access to a lot of benefits. More information is available HERE or contact Genevieve