'Funding supports new phase of education growth'

'Innovation Funding supports new phase of education growth'
Education New Zealand: Media Release 24/03/05

‘The first round of Export Education Innovation Projects funded by Government represent a welcome and timely development for international education in New Zealand’ says Stuart Boag, Communications Director of Education New Zealand. ‘A new era in the industry is fast evolving, and this programme is a real boost to the future of education exporters’.

‘International education for New Zealand has historically been very much about students coming to New Zealand’ says Stuart Boag. ‘We have been extremely successful as a country in getting students to come here, but there are limits both educationally and socially to our capacity for international students. In addition to these internal constraints, we are also up against considerable international competition and the fast increasing ability of countries that have been major markets to provide more and better education services within their own borders. For these reasons, future evolution and expansion will become far more a function of how successfully New Zealand providers can build partnerships and provide services offshore’.

‘The potential for offshore expansion is enormous’ says Stuart Boag. ‘Our success in attracting students to New Zealand is ample proof that the New Zealand educational way is keenly sought internationally, and can deliver excellent results. The challenge of taking up opportunities offshore is more about investment, risk management and practical implementation than about whether we have something to offer.

Many institutions have already blazed the trail for offshore delivery, partnerships and innovative services. This latest support from Government assisting in this process is very welcome. The selected institutions (chosen by a panel of experienced practitioners from education and wider export industry fields through a contestable process) are the vanguard of an ever growing educational trend’.

ENDS

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