HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Sept. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New Zealand's leading university, the University of Auckland, has just announced an extensive range of new scholarships for students from South-East Asia, providing students with up to NZD10,000 of financial support.
With the borders now fully open, the University is keen to get South-East Asian students back on campus and has launched the University of Auckland ASEAN High Achievers Scholarship. Applications for the scholarship open on 10 October, and both undergraduate and postgraduate students can apply.
University of Auckland Interim Director International, Ainslie Moore, says the scholarships will be awarded biannually to students studying full-time on a wide range of undergraduate degrees, masters degrees and postgraduate diplomas, who demonstrate high academic achievement in their previous study.
"This is a significant investment for this University, and we very much look forward to welcoming these top students to Auckland, especially after the past few years of Covid and lockdowns. International students add diversity and richness to our campuses as well as playing a major role in research and in the New Zealand workforce outside the university," she says.
This new scholarship offering is set to reduce financial barriers for incoming students from the region to support them with the transition from online to on-campus learning.
University of Auckland's Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Strategic Engagement, Dr Erik Lithander, says "Covid has been tough on everybody, especially our international students who have been in limbo for so long. We've been supporting them every step of the way and it's so rewarding to now see them back on campus. There's nothing quite like the buzz of students rushing between lecture theatres, debating in tutorials, and hanging out in the beautiful Albert Park - it's what university life is all about".
The University also supported students from Malaysia, Indonesia & Thailand by offering online learning support providing a high contact, personalised learning support programme to help students achieve their education goals, whilst border restrictions were in place. Dedicated Learning Advisors were made available to undergraduate students from these countries, to assist students in their local time zone anytime they needed a helping hand.
Throughout the pandemic, the University of Auckland continued to develop institutional partnerships across South-East Asia to strengthen ties within the region.
This included a Memorandum of Understanding with Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology whereby several long-term goals were identified in areas such as joint-research and credit transfer agreements allowing students the opportunity study at both institutions throughout their degree. Taylors University in Malaysia is another high-ranking partner that the University has partnered with during the pandemic. This partnership allows students studying the Bachelor of Education at Taylor's University to transfer either to the Bachelor of Education or the Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies offered at the University of Auckland after just one year.
With the New Zealand borders having opened to international students, the University of Auckland hopes that the initiatives that have been put in place throughout the pandemic will have set students on the right track to commence studies here in 2023.
Founded in 1883, the University of Auckland is the country's largest university with more than 40,000 students, of which 7,000 are international students over 100 countries. It is New Zealand's leading university, ranked 87th in the world in the QS World Rankings 2023 and 137 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World Rankings. In 2019 it was placed number one in the world in the inaugural THE University Impact Rankings, which measure how universities worldwide are performing against the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
