Running out of time? Highlights are as follows:

• After a thorough examination, Education New Zealand decided to end its agency recognition program.
• The program hadn't been seen as providing concrete advantages to either group, according to consultations with instructors and agents.
• Future efforts by ENZ will centre on increasing the backing for a larger range of agents.

The ENZRA (Education New Zealand Recognized Agency) program will end quickly, according to a statement from Education New Zealand. The decision was made after a review that involved discussions with educators and more than 100 education agents. The New Zealand International Education Strategy gave a hint to this procedure in the last year, 2022.

Participating agents told ENZ during the program assessment that ENZRA "doesn't deliver tangible benefits or significant value to existing ENZRA agents."

“Our review showed that many successful agents did not see the value in joining the programme,” told Sahinde Pala, ENZ’s General Manager for Sector Services. “The programme was also not accessible to emerging education consultants and organisations, and it did not meet the needs of New Zealand education providers.”

“After careful consideration of the feedback from many agencies and New Zealand education providers, it became clear that the existing programme was not fit for the emerging environment and the decision was taken to discontinue.”

She stated in an accompanied video that ENZRA was mistakenly viewed by certain individuals to be a quality assurance program, but it was never meant to be: "We unfortunately cannot quality assure education agents, that responsibility lies with education providers in NZ under their code of practice obligations.”

Ms. Pala also emphasized that agents liked additional services offered by ENZ, such as the company's worldwide staff network as well as the AgentLab online platform. “Looking forward,” she added, “we want to ensure a more even-handed and efficient approach and feel the best way of achieving this is to open up the power of our international network, along with our information and training capability to all agents, regardless of their size, expertise or capability.”

Going through that line, ENZ has decided to move forward with plans to reopen the AgentLab platform during the month and to provide agents recruiting for NZ institutions and schools with a more extensive webinar program in addition to other services.

The ENZRA program has been revised in 2018, and participating agents are now required to complete training programs, reach enrollment-based targets, and adhere to basic standards of conduct.

As soon as they had been accepted into the programme, agents were given permission to use the ENZRA logo on their websites and firm collateral, became eligible to receive further ENZ support, and were listed in an agent directory on the Study With New Zealand website. On August 9, 2023, there were still a list of more than 300 agents.

The ENZRA logo and brand must now be removed from every communication and business materials, and ENZ will soon take down the ENZRA directory from the Studying With New Zealand website. Agents who need support or more information are encouraged to get in touch with ENZ at agent.help@enz.govt.nz.

Source: https://monitor.icef.com/2023/08/education-new-zealand-shuts-down-its-recognised-agency-programme/