In New Zealand the Migrant Workers Association, and Love Aotearoa Hate Racism will hold a Stand Against Racism rally on Sunday November 3 in Auckland targeting NZ First MP Shane Jones over his recent comments about Indian immigration to NZ.
The rally will also purse a longer list of concerns about the experience of temporary visa migrants in New Zealand, including that “dodgy offshore education agents continue to sell pipe dreams to international students.” The groups will demand that “offshore education agents should be regulated.”
The problem with calling on any government to regulate anything offshore – be it education agent regulation or anything else – is that it ignores a fundamental principle of international law: state sovereignty. In summary that principle means that a country/state is solely responsible for its own affairs and others can’t interfere. So the NZ government couldn’t regulate agents offshore even if it wanted to.
Education agent regulation in NZ
New Zealand already regulates the use of education agents by educational institutions based in NZ through the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice 2016. It sets out the responsibilities of education providers to ensure that international students in New Zealand are protected. All education providers enrolling international students are required to be signatories. It includes obligations relating to the use of education agents. Those obligations were strengthened by amendments which came into force on 1 July 2019.
Working with education agents?
…protect your institution and students.
An effective and well managed education agent strategy can deliver great results for your institution and international students.
When education agents behave badly, students are harmed and the reputation of the institution takes a hit. Our database of education agent alerts shows the damage caused when agents are unprofessional, unethical or dishonest.
We strongly recommend that you check the education agent alert database before entering into, or renewing, a contract with an education agent.
It is critical that you manage the risk effectively by implementing a best practice education agent recruitment, monitoring and management system. The protection of your institution and international students depends on it.
AgentBee offers a solution that will improve your approach to education agent recruitment, monitoring and management, and save you a heap of time in the process.
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Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash