Future proofing young New Zealanders for an Asia century

MEDIA RELEASE

31 March 2011

Future proofing young New Zealanders for an Asia century

Is New Zealand doing enough to prepare young New Zealanders with the knowledge and skills in Asian languages and studies they will need for a future increasingly dominated by Asian countries?

China and India are forecast to be the world's largest economies by 2050 and Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea are projected to be among the top 20. New Zealand’s largest trading partner Australia is even forecast to fall out of the top 20.

How does New Zealand respond to the rapidly changing, increasingly Asia-centric world?

In a changing world the Asia New Zealand Foundation strongly believes that today’s educators need to start future proofing young New Zealand students for an Asia century.

On April 5-6 in Wellington the Foundation will be holding the Educating for Asia 2011 Summit. The aim to bring together 80 key school principals and 20 other educators from across New Zealand committed to making their schools and students ‘Asia aware’.

The Educating for Asia Summit is in partnership with the Ministry of Education and with support of Confucius Institute in Auckland. It is designed to inspire school principals and make them realize the urgent need for young New Zealanders to be ready for a future increasingly dependent on Asia.

Three distinguished international keynote speakers will outline the case for educating for Asia:

Dr Yong Zhao is the Presidential Chair of Global Education and Online Learning at the University of Oregon, where he also serves as the Associate Dean for Global Education and Online Learning and the Director of Centre for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education. Dr Zhao’s current work focuses on designing 21st century schools in the context of globalisation and the digital revolution. He will also speak to 140 principals at a SPANZ conference in Napier, to 500 principals at the NZPF conference in Wellington and to staff from schooling and international divisions at the Ministry of Education.

Dr Michael Wesley is the executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. Previously he was Professor of International Relations and Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Hong Kong and Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. In 2008, he was co-chair (with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith) of one of the ten issue streams at the Australian government’s 2020 Summit and gave the keynote speech at the summit.

Andrew Clarke is senior partner and managing director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Auckland. He has worked across Asia for the past 15 years on projects for clients operating in Japan, China, Korea, Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan. Currently Andrew heads BCG’s Asia-Pacific corporate development practice and is overseeing the establishment of BCG’s office in Perth.

The venue for the Educating for Asia Summit is the James Cook Hotel Grand Chancellor in Wellington.

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