Bus. Partnership says we need to educate for Asia

MEDIA RELEASE

Monday, 16 November 2009
Business partnership says we need to educate for Asia

Leading New Zealand business and employee organisations are urging schools to prepare young New Zealanders for the future by teaching them more about Asia, says Asia New Zealand Foundation Director Dr Richard Grant.

Dr Grant says the Business Education Partnership, a joint initiative between the Asia New Zealand Foundation and the business community, is an urgent call for the New Zealand public and educationalists to think deeply about how we all can prepare our young people for a future increasingly dominated by Asian economies.

“It is not a choice we have to offer these skills but an imperative,” Dr Grant said. “It is encouraging that the companies and organisations that are signatories also see the critical strategic value of this initiative.”

The launch of the Business Education Partnership today is a declaration by 43 leading New Zealand companies and employee organisations to call greater attention to educating young New Zealanders about Asia.

The declaration urges greater attention for the learning about Asia in our schools. It says building knowledge of Asia, its cultures, languages and peoples is a priority task for our education system, so that New Zealand has a workforce that is better informed about the region and better equipped to deal with it.

All the business signatories commit themselves to working with school communities to see that this partnership can help deliver greater Asia Awareness to fellow New Zealanders.

The Business Education Partnership launch will take place in Wellington today (Monday November 16) at 5.30pm.

Dr Grant says the New Zealand Curriculum acknowledges the importance of New Zealand students having opportunities to explore future focus issues such as globalisation and citizenship. “Asia is central to this global understanding.”

“It’s time for all New Zealanders to begin to join the dots, to acknowledge our growing interdependence with a region that will have a huge impact on world affairs in the 21st century. Many New Zealanders already have been affected by Asia in some way, whether by travel, trade or with people in their communities,” Dr Grant said.

“We need greater emphasis in education on the Asian region to prepare young New Zealanders for a world that’s very different from the one we grew up in.”

The Business Education Partnership launch today will be accompanied by the release of the New Zealand Curriculum and Asia Guide.

“This document will provide school leaders, senior management teams and curriculum leaders with knowledge and information about the importance of being Asia Aware and using Asia as a context in teaching and learning programmes.”

The New Zealand Curriculum and Asia Guide includes school stories and comments from principals, teachers and students already engaging with Asia and Asian communities as well as a series of questions to trigger discussion in schools about how to become more Asia Aware.

“Our aim is that by 2015, all young New Zealanders will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to take advantage of the opportunities to live, work and interact with Asian communities in New Zealand and with the peoples and countries of Asia,” Dr Grant said.

The Business Education Partnership is based on one of the recommendations that came out of the Action Asia Business Summit in 2007 which called for more Asian content in New Zealand schools. The BEP initiative is championed by the Action Asia Advisory Group, a representative group of New Zealand business leaders.

ATTACHMENTS

DECLARATION:

The 21st Century will be the century of Asia. Already the world’s second and third largest economies, Japan and China, are in Asia. New Zealand as a part of the wider Asian region will see its future shaped by what happens in Asia.

Understanding what is happening in Asia is the key to our future. Building our knowledge of Asia, its cultures, its languages and its peoples, is a priority task for our education system, so that New Zealanders can become more informed about the region and better equipped to deal with it.

We, the signatories of this declaration, have therefore formed the Business Education Partnership for New Zealand’s Future with Asia to call for greater attention to be given to making New Zealanders, in our schools and in our educational institutions, in our boardrooms and in our workplaces, more informed about Asia.

We commit ourselves to working with our communities to see that this partnership can help deliver greater Asia Awareness to fellow New Zealanders. We want to see greater attention given to learning about Asia in our schools.

We want to support this initiative by developing programmes in our own organisations which support greater Asia Awareness.

We want to increase the opportunities for New Zealanders to learn more about Asia and to learn the languages of Asia.

We represent major business organisations and employee organisations, which together cover the majority of the New Zealand economy. We represent as well individual companies and institutions; we represent the business councils which promote trade and economic growth with our major trading partners in Asia.

Together, we can make this partnership a real force in giving New Zealanders the chance to become Asia Aware.

This declaration and initiative have been endorsed by the following people and their respective organisations:

• Graeme Harrison, Chairman, ANZCO Foods Ltd
• Mitchell Pham, General Manager, Augen Software Group (NZ)
• Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive, Business New Zealand
• Peter Townsend, Chief Executive, Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce
• Alasdair Thompson, Chief Executive, The Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) Inc
• Don Nicolson, National President, Federated Farmers of NZ Inc
• Sir Kenneth Stevens, Executive Chairman, Glidepath Group
• Tim Gibson, Chief Executive, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
• Sir Stephen Tindall, Founder & Trustee, The Tindall Foundation

Signatories to date:

• ANZ National Bank Limited
• ANZCO Foods Ltd
• Asia New Zealand Foundation
• Auckland Chamber of Commerce
• Auckland International Airport Ltd
• Augen Software Group
• Beca Group Ltd
• Bell Gully
• BUPA Care Services
• Business New Zealand
• Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce
• Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd
• Colmar Brunton
• Cosco (NZ) Ltd
• Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) Inc
• Euroasia
• Fairfax Media
• Federated Farmers of NZ Inc
• Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd
• Glidepath Group
• Hewlett-Packard NZ
• HSBC
• Hunter's Wines (N.Z.) Limited
• Kiwibank
• KPMG
• Meat Industry Association
• Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
• New Zealand Asia Institute
• New Zealand Council of Trade Unions
• New Zealand Post
• New Zealand Sugar Company Ltd
• New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
• Newspaper Publishers' Association
• NZ Bus
• Otago Southland Employers' Association
• Ports of Auckland Limited
• Silver Fern Farms
• Singapore Airlines
• Tahia Investments
• The Icehouse
• The Tindall Foundation
• Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce
• Zespri International Ltd

DID YOU KNOW?
• 75 percent of New Zealanders say that Asia is important to New Zealand’s future.

• 60.4 percent of the world’s population lives in Asia.

• The Asian communities in New Zealand now comprise about 10 percent of our total population, and will be 16 percent by 2025.

• In the 2008 calendar year, New Zealand imported goods worth just over $48.5 billion, nearly $21 billion of which came from Asia? That’s 48 percent of New Zealand’s imports. After Australia, China was our second biggest source of imports. Japan was fourth, and Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Korea were all in the top ten.

• Half of New Zealand’s top 20 trading partners are now in East Asia.

• Asia contains not only the world’s second largest economy, Japan, but also two of its biggest emerging markets, China and India.

• Nearly 20 percent of our tourists come from countries in Asia.

• GDP per capita in China in 2009 is thirteen times the size it was in 1990.

• More secondary school students in New Zealand study French than the sum total of those studying Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

• Last year more secondary school students in New Zealand learned Latin than Chinese.

• Last year fewer than 2000 students were learning Chinese and fewer than 50 schools taught the language.

• Only one in ten New Zealand born New Zealanders of working age can speak two or more languages, and that the majority of those who can are of Asian ethnicity.

ENDS

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