A number of organisations in the Christchurch and Canterbury region are merging into a single entity – ChristchurchNZ – in an effort to optimise the opportunities that tourism, international education, major events, city promotion and economic development can deliver. These include Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism (CCT), the Convention Bureau, Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC), Christchurch Educated, and the Christchurch City Council’s Major Events team. Together, their purpose is to "support prosperity, opportunity and a great quality of life in Christchurch and Canterbury". The new entity will be located in the new BNZ Centre, Cashel Mall once the premises are completed in July or August. One example of collaboration already underway is the Canterbury Job Ready Programme, designed and delivered by economic development, regional Chambers of Commerce, NZ Trade and Enterprise and the regional international education team.

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Staff at tertiary education institutions are experiencing higher levels of stress, unsustainable workloads and are feeling more alienated from their jobs compared to a decade ago, according to a report published recently by the Tertiary Education Union. Titled Education Under Pressure, the report adds "increased pressure on staff to change grades, dedicate less time to teaching and change admission rules, all of which lead to lower education outcomes for students".

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#StopEducationTrafficking

Dear Friends, please beware of Education and Immigration Advisers who make "STUDY WORK LIVE" and similar promises for New Zealand. In many cases this is MISLEADING. I met with NZ Government Representatives today [March 29] (Ministry of Education, Education NZ, NZQA and Immigration NZ) and they will not accept this! They are taking action against Advisers who misleadingly promise this. Please be on the lookout for this and report to me by PM, so we can bring this to their attention. - Ambassador Domingo

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Immigration New Zealand has published the offshore student visa approval rates for 2016 on their website indicating that India had an approval rate of 46 percent with 7562 visas accepted and 8818 rejections. This easily tops the rejection numbers as the next on list is China with only 649 rejections. The country had an approval rate of 93 percent with 8194 students coming to New Zealand to study from China last year. Third and fourth on the list are the Philippines and Bangladesh with 473 and 418 rejections respectively. While Philippines had an approval rate of 72 percent, Bangladesh had a much lower rate of only 23 percent.

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Issues of international students coming to New Zealand, which adds almost $3b to the country’s economy annually, is a hot topic in the country now. All the more when hundreds of students from India are being deported on charges of providing false information to the authorities here. Set in this context was the December 5, public meeting organised by the Ministry of Education in Christchurch to deliberate ideas on improving on the draft “international student wellbeing strategy”. When in force, the strategy will update the Leadership Statement for International Education announced in 2011.

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Realising the importance of international students in New Zealand's education sector, the National Government, has put in place two very important measures since July 1, this year. First is the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code Of Practice 2016 replacing the existing Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students, for which the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is the Code Administrator.

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