The 20 Vietnamese students will discover New Zealand’s future-focused and world-class education system, with scholarships offering 100 per cent, 50 per cent, and 30 per cent off tuition fees for their first year of study.

Open for applications since April, the NZSS initiative attracted significant interest from Vietnamese parents and students interested in New Zealand’s secondary education.

Applicants were requested to submit their academic records online together with a short video clip to convince judges why they should be chosen as NZSS winners.

Within three months of its launch in January, NZSS received 64 high-quality applications from students in Vietnam.

“Education New Zealand and the secondary schools involved in the NZSS initiative were delighted to receive such a high standard of student applications from Vietnam,” said Mr. Ben Burrowes, ENZ’s Regional Manager for East Asia.

“It was a challenging process to select 20 students, but the successful applicants were all clearly able to demonstrate their academic excellence as well as their passion and understanding of how a New Zealand education would best prepare them for their future.”

“We continue to see awareness of New Zealand’s education offering grow in Vietnam and the response to our NZSS program is testament to that. More and more Vietnamese students are choosing New Zealand as their international education destination, particularly at the secondary school level. We’ll continue to explore other valuable opportunities for more Vietnamese students to discover why New Zealand is regarded as world-leading for preparing its students for the future.”

As at the end of 2018, the number of Vietnamese students studying in New Zealand grew by 8 per cent compared to 2017, with the number of secondary school students increasing 34 per cent.

In the first three months of 2019, the number of Vietnamese secondary school students rose by 20 per cent compared to the same period of 2018.

To help prepare successful NZSS recipients and their parents ahead of their journey to New Zealand, ENZ held an awards ceremony cum pre-departure briefing on July 1 in Ho Chi Minh City.

The ceremony was hosted by H.E. Wendy Matthews, New Zealand’s Ambassador to Vietnam, and provided students with all the necessary information about living and studying in New Zealand.

“Education is a key pillar for strategic cooperation between New Zealand and Vietnam,” said Ambassador Matthews.

“There are many ongoing educational projects in both the governmental and private sectors, including the New Zealand Scholarship for post-graduate students, the English training program for Vietnamese officials - ELTO, a series of partnerships between New Zealand and Vietnamese universities, and now the New Zealand School Scholarships. These initiatives have led to strong growth in the number of students from Vietnam to New Zealand, with 2,500 students in total.”