Lunch with international flavour
Afew weeks ago, students from Katikati College in the Bay of Plenty took a break from their usual lunch routines to indulge in pad thai, fried rice, bubble tea, butter chicken and okonomiyaki savoury Japanese pancakes.
The food was prepared for them by a group of Asian international students in their school.
The international students were so delighted with the reception from their classmates that they’ve already started planning their next event.
It may seem like a bit of a nobrainer that international students have a lot to offer their school communities. But the fact is, this hasn’t been a big focus of New Zealand’s education strategy in the past.
But a few weeks ago, the Government released a new international education strategy via Education New Zealand, with a focus on international education’s contributions to a ‘‘thriving and globally connected New Zealand’’.
This strategy – which guides New Zealand policy towards international students through to 2030 – has flown under the radar. It attracted a smidgen of media coverage here in New Zealand, but arguably not as much as it deserved, considering international education is one of our biggest export earners.
The strategy includes some pretty impressive numbers. In 2017, international education contributed $4.4 billion to the Executive director, Asia New Zealand Foundation
New Zealand economy, saw 125,392 international students get a Kiwi-style learning experience, and supported 33,000 jobs.
Students from Asia – particularly China and India but also Korea, Japan and increasingly Southeast Asia – make up around two-thirds of international students in New Zealand.
But more importantly, the new strategy signals a substantial shift in focus.
At the Asia New Zealand Foundation, we’re particularly pleased to see that it is not just focused on financial returns from international students – but also the wider benefits for the New Zealand education sector.
Partly this is about ensuring international students have the best-possible experiences in New Zealand, but it’s also about showing New Zealanders the benefits for our whole education system.
One of the strategy’s key goals is around global citizens – giving New Zealand students the knowledge, skills and capabilities they need to live, work and learn globally.
This harmonises with the foundation’s priorities in helping young Kiwis to become more confident about Asia.
Our recent research has shown that young New Zealanders fare worse than the general population when it comes to knowledge of Asia.
We also know from our report Starting Strong: Nurturing the potential of Asian under-fives that many New Zealand children are bilingual or multilingual when they start school but quickly lose their language skills.
That’s partly because speaking one language, English, is normal in New Zealand and they lack classroom role models who are multilingual.
Given our workforce will increasingly need people with Asia capabilities, it’s important business leaders advocate for these skills.
At the foundation, we’ve been mapping out a ‘‘Think Asia’’ pathway to help equip young New Zealanders with knowledge and experiences, as they pass through the education system to early employment.
The aim is to enable young New Zealanders to become more confident and engaged with Asia and to make deeper connections with the region and its people.
This pathway includes elements such as careers advice, language learning and internships in Asia – but also less formal experiences like the one at Katikati College, which was supported by one of our Experience Asia grants.
These seemingly small experiences are often enough to spark curiosity and increase confidence in interacting with other cultures.
Another thing we were pleased to see in the strategy was the focus on regional New Zealand. A scan of media from regional newspapers shows both schools and tertiary education providers are embracing the opportunities presented by international students and are building connections to Asia.
The foundation has 20 years’ of data from our Perceptions of Asia and Asian Peoples research that tells us that the more nonAsian New Zealanders interact with people who identify as Asian, the more positive they feel about Asia as a whole.
International students, if given the opportunity, can play a big part in this.
These seemingly small experiences are often enough to spark curiosity.