Connecting with the world through education

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The unique and picturesque scenery of Otago.

INTERNATIONAL education is important to New Zealand (NZ) for various reasons.

First, it is an essential mechanism to connect with the rest of the world and create lifelong links to enrich the country culturally and socially. Secondly, just as important to the Kiwis, is it will enable overseas students in NZ universities to bring home a great global experience, fond memories and many lifelong friends.

This is what John Goulter, Education New Zealand (ENZ) general manager for the Government and Partners Team, hopes to see happen especially with the 100,000 international students (mostly from Asia) who have chosen to study in NZ every year.

About 1,800 of the international students are from Malaysia and last year 528 were first-timers.

Malaysian students make up about 2 per cent of NZ’s international student population. The majority of Malaysian students (82 per cent) are studying in one of the eight universities in New Zealand while the rest have enrolled in institutes of technology and polytechnics or independent/private training organisations.

Historical ties

New Zealand is no stranger to Sarawak. In the 1960s, as one of the contributors to the Colombo Plan Scholarship, it hosted and educated many Sarawakians who later became leaders of the state and pillars of society.

Among them were Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu Numpang (University of Canterbury, Christchurch); Land Development Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing (Victoria University, Wellington), and former Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Leo Moggie Irok (University of Otago, Dunedin).

The experience in New Zealand has left such a lifelong impression that many of these Colombo Plan scholars are still maintaining close links with their alma maters, despite the relationship being first established about half a century ago. The ties have resulted in not only on-going partnerships but also many more promising future collaborations.

“We have not lost contact even though it has been more than 50 years since we studied there. There are a big number of New Zealand graduates in Malaysia, of whom about 40 per cent are from Sarawak,” Jabu said during a courtesy call by University of Canterbury (UC) vice-chancellor Dr Rod Carr in 2013.

A collaboration between UC and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) was discussed and a memorandum of understanding covering student exchange, faculty exchange, study abroad opportunities, research collaboration as well as funding for students from Unimas to take up doctorate degrees at UC transpired.

Due to the historical connection, the Malaysian government continues to maintain its strong ties with New Zealand. Many students, especially those pursuing postgraduate studies under sponsorships of various Malaysian educational institutions such as the Public Service Department (JPA) and Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara), have been sent to New Zealand to be trained.

Container buildings fill up empty spaces in Christchurch as rebuilding continues after the earthquake.

Govt-sponsored and full-fee students

University of Otago (Utago) Pharmacy students Clausanta Paul Joring, Najwa Nurdiyana Ababrani, Faizul Abdul Rahman and Fionseca Teh — are all Sarawakians under JPA scholarships.

To them, the multiracial nature of NZ is nothing new although food is an issue.

Faizul, used to spicy food, finds Kiwi cuisine too plain. He usually loses weight during the school term in Dunedin but puts it back on during summer breaks at home in Mukah.

Clausanta, who likes western food, finds herself gaining weight in NZ.

All of them told thesundaypost that JPA-sponsored students studying in Otaga are either doing pharmacy or dentistry, and are expected to return to serve for seven years, failing which means default payments of RM800,000 for pharmacy students and RM1 million for dentistry students.

The Mara-sponsored students include Mohd Halim Mohd Noor (PhD in computer engineering); Mohd Nazrin Muhammad (PhD in electronics engineering); and Nadyhiya Liyana Mohd Kamal (PhD in electrical and electronic engineering). They are doing their doctorate degrees at the University of Auckland (AU).

Prof Sing Kiong Nguang from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, AU, said there are usually between 10 and 20 Malaysian students from the average 250 international students enrolled in his department. Most Malaysian students are sponsored by the Malaysian government, especially Mara, while others are full-fee students.

Born in Sibu but now a permanent resident of NZ, Sing estimated that an international electrical engineering undergraduate student would need NZ$47,000 each year — NZ$32,000 for tuition fees and about NZ$15,000 as living expenses. For postgraduate students — since the NZ government is charging domestic rates — an international student needs to spend between NZ$6,000 and NZ$7,000 for tuition fees (depending on the programme) apart from NZ$15,000 for living expenses.

Halim, Nazrin and Nadyhiya’s tuition fees are fully paid by Mara, which also allocates NZ$1,260 per month to each scholar as living expenses. Full-fee students such as Khor Sze Yuin from UC will have to work part-time to relieve financial stress.

International students are allowed to work in the country for not more than 20 hours part-time per week during the term, as well as full-time during scheduled holidays.

Former Monarch University, Kuala Lumpur student Khor managed to convert all her credits. A third year Bachelor of Commerce (marketing) student, she will be graduating at end of the year.

She said working part-time helped pay part of her living expenses. And she is now working 12 hours per week. With a minimum wage of NZ$14.25 per hour, she makes about NZ$170 per week to cover her total utility bills of NZ$160 per week.

Mechatronic student Jason Lai joined UC on a scholarship offered by the university. The Undergraduate International Scholarship offers domestic fees for international undergraduates. Hailing from Bintulu, Jason applied for the scholarship while still attending secondary school in Sarawak.

As Canterbury Malaysian Students’ Association (CMSA) president, Lai noticed that before the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, there were many Mara and JPA students in UC. After the natural disaster, the number of their students studying in Christchurch dropped drastically. Presently, there are about 300 Malaysian students in UC, of whom about 50 are postgraduate students.

The Engineering Faculty of the University of Auckland.

University of Auckland (AU)

Situated in the heart of NZ’s fastest growing city, this research-led university, ranked among the world’s 100 top, has been award a Five Stars Plus rating (QS World University Rankings 2014/2015). The faculty of engineering is ranked sixth in the world for (Employer Reputation) by the QS Intelligence Unit. It is ranked 66th in the world in the QS University World Rankings by Faculty in 2014/2015. This score is based on academic reputation, employer reputation and citation.

AU international communications and liaison officer Philippa Brown said for the 2014 enrolment, out of the 859 Asean students, 425 are from Malaysia.

Apart from the traditional courses and programmes, the university’s engineering faculty had, in response to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, come up with the new postgraduate programme of Master of Disaster Management.

Heading the research programme for crisis management, Professor of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Susanne Wilkinson said as disaster management is becoming an increasingly important issue globally, this highly relevant programme was designed to prepare people for careers and leadership roles in disaster management.

She pointed out that the degree aimed “to provide graduates with the multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills required to underpin successful approaches to addressing the management of disasters, focusing on key issues such as disaster resilience and risk management”.

AU recently converted a brewery into a new research centre where state-of-art equipment was installed with the aim to provide the best for postgraduate students to do their research. Well-known for its engineering research programme, the university’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering now has 120 PhD research students, topping all its departments.

On its unique Transportation Engineering Department with 24 PhD students so far, senior lecturer Dr Douglas Wilson said the syllabus covered a wide spectrum of studies — from geotechnical engineering and geometric engineering on one side and pavement design on the other wide to traffic safety and highway road geometry in the middle.

“We have looked very carefully at a lot of Transportation Engineering programmes around the world and we have colleagues worldwide as well. In terms of offering courses across the spectrum and the availability of lecturers in the area, we don’t know of any other university that is doing the same sort of programmes as we are,” Wilson told Malaysian and Indonesian journalists during a study tour from March 1-7 sponsored by ENZ.

He pointed out that due to the shortage of skills in the area of Transportation Engineering, about 40 to 50 per cent of its Civil Engineering students ended up working in the Transport Engineering field.

This factor, coupled with the conscious decision to focus more on research related to NZ industry, has prompted the NZ Transport Agency to step in to lend its support by funding Transportation Engineering Master programmes for which the AU has been collaborating with UC.

The University of Canterbury (UC)

Founded in 1873, UC, the second oldest university in New Zealand, was started with only four staff with Oxford and Cambridge backgrounds laying the Oxford tradition as the foundation for the university.

Proud of the traditions which set the university apart from other NZ universities, Carr said when it was first started, there were only 80 students – meaning a staff-student ratio of 1:20. One hundred and forty years later, the ratio remains at 1:17. To Carr, with this regards to its Oxford tradition, “there has not been much of a change”.

Out of its total 14,500 students, 18 per cent are postgraduate students. In terms of postgraduate student proportion to the total number of students, it has been the largest among all NZ universities. And because of its high proportion of international postgraduate students and international teaching staff, as well as the high number of research published, UC has been ranked the most international university in NZ, third in Australasia and 22nd in the world.

“Internationalisation has been a feature for this university since its founding. We have 150 partner universities where the students, be they international or domestic, can go for an exchange. Several hundreds students go for exchange with our partner universities every year for their credits in UC,” Carr said.

For this year, UC has started a new policy of footing airfares for outstanding students whose results qualify them to go overseas and study in UC’s partner universities in the world.

“That’s to empower students to take the opportunity to have the benefits from studying abroad. So our internationalisation strategy is not just about bringing in international students here, but also about enriching the international experience of all our (domestic) students,” he explained.

Last year, according to QS World University Rankings by Subject, UC’s 16 subjects, featured with Civil and Structural Engineering, were ranked 19th; Education, Geography, History and Law between 51 and 100 while Communication and Media studies, Computer Science and Information Systems, Chemical Engineering, Linguistics, Psychology and others between 101 and 150.

Situated in Christchurch, a city sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Alps, UC students can ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon. It was voted one of the top cities to visit by Lonely Planet a year after the 2011 earthquake because of the amazing energy in its rebuilding. In 2014, the New York Times also voted Christchurch No. 2 out of the 52 places to visit in the world.

To director of International Relationships Bob Korzeniowski, this was amazing.

“Lonely Planet voted for Christchurch because of the way we are recovering, filing up the empty spaces, the welcoming spirit and the fact that it is safe to come visit. We have not fully recovered as you have seen in the centre of the city. We have not got all our buildings back but we are welcoming people. We would like to tell our stories.”

Angus relates the history of Otago University.

The University of Otago (Utago)

A research university, Otago is NZ’s first university founded in 1869. Its main campus is situated at the unique city of Dunedin where out of the total city population of 120,000, 21 per cent are students.  And out of the 25,000 students, 2,600 are international students, including 289 from Malaysia.

Otago international marketing and liaison manager Wayne Angus said over 75 per cent of the overall students actually come from outside Dunedin.

Known for its historical university buildings, Otago was included in 15 of the world’s most beautiful universities by the Huffington Post in July 2013.

Academically, it was ranked 159 in the world (2014 QS World University Rankings) with top 50 subject rankings for psychology (19), English language and literature (28), history (30) and law (37), and top 100 subject rankings for accounting and finance, biological sciences, education, geography, medicine, politics and international studies, and sociology.

It also registered the highest satisfaction scores for any New Zealand university in international student experience according to the International Student Barometer 2013. For its international education network, it now has an extensive student exchange programme with over 90 partners in 32 countries.

The city is known for its student life, particularly flatting which is the sharing of old houses near the city campus. The students are nicknamed Scarfies for wearing scarfs during the winter. The movie ‘Scarfie’ made it even more popular.

Dunedin City Council export education co-ordinator Sarah Gautheir said Dunedin has the youngest population in NZ with 45 per cent of its residents under 30, and 84 per cent rating the quality of life as “good” and “extremely good”.

Dunedin also has NZ’s highest concentration of postgraduate qualifications — at over 36 per cent of the population.