Victoria Expands International Links
Victoria Expands International Links
Victoria University is expanding its international links in a co-operative deal that will see students from five Asian countries able to gain New Zealand PhD degrees while allowing New Zealanders to study in Asia.
The co-operative research and PhD programme is an initiative of the Greater Mekong Subregion Tertiary Education Consortium (GMSTEC) Trust, a Victoria-led initiative that combines the academic resources of leading universities in New Zealand, Australia and the Greater Mekong Subregion.
Under the Memorandum of Agreement, overseas students can either study for a Victoria PhD with secondary supervision overseas or study for an overseas PhD with secondary supervision at Victoria. Likewise, New Zealand students can study for a Victoria PhD with secondary supervision overseas or for an overseas PhD with secondary supervision at Victoria.
Victoria's Pro Vice-Chancellor International, Professor Neil Quigley said the Greater Mekong Subregion was an area of Asia that was experiencing significant economic growth.
"But that growth has been very uneven and many people remain in serious poverty. To enable as many people as possible to enjoy a better quality of life, the countries of that region need highly qualified and skilled people. This initiative will see increased numbers of PhD students from the area enrolling with the New Zealand and Australian members of the consortium, gaining access to a high quality education while paying lower overall fees.
"This Agreement will also see increased academic co-operation between us and our partner universities leading to future joint research and access to a broader range of supervisory expertise in relevant disciplines.
"But this will not be just one-way traffic as New Zealand students will also be able to study at our partner institutions in the Subregion. For example, the research of a New Zealand student studying the economics or development of Third World countries would be greatly enhanced by having supervisory access to the knowledge of the academics in our partner institutions."
The parties to
the deal are: two New Zealand universities, Victoria
University and University of Canterbury; an Australian
university, Adelaide University; three Thai universities;
the Asian Institute of Technology; Khon Kaen University; and
King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thonburi; three
Vietnamese universities, Hanoi University of Technology; the
National Economics University, Hanoi; and the University of
Economics, Ho Chi Minh City; two Cambodian universities, the
Royal University of Agriculture and the Royal University of
Phnom Penh; and the National University of Laos; and Yunnan
University in
China.