Victoria signs Thailand MOA for educational co-op

Victoria signs Thailand MOA for educational co-operation

Victoria University of Wellington has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Office of the Civil Service Commission of Thailand to promote the education of Thai government officials.

The agreement was signed on 4 July at the University’s Kelburn Campus by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Walsh, and Mr Sima Simananta, Secretary-General of the Commission. The agreement was witnessed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, HE Dr Wissanu Krea-Ngam.

Pro Vice-Chancellor (International), Professor Neil Quigley, says the agreement is designed to promote co-operation on education, training and research between the University and the Commission.

“A strong emphasis of the agreement is on ensuring that appropriately qualified government officials from Thailand can enrol in postgraduate programmes. The Commission recognises Victoria as a preferred provider of Master and PhD programmes for government officials from Thailand and to that end the University will provide scholarships to waive tuition costs for preparatory English languages programmes to assist officials into these programmes.”

Professor Quigley said the aim was to recruit at least 20 new PhD or Master students over the next three years.

“Victoria is well placed to provide the education that the Commission seeks. Being based in New Zealand’s Capital, the home of Parliament, the Executive, the Judiciary and the diplomatic corps, we specialise in providing programmes, such as the Master of Public Policy, Public Administration and Strategic Studies degrees, which are tailored to meet the needs of government agencies and their staff.

“The University already has a Memorandum of Understanding with the New Zealand State Services Commission and is a foundation member of the prestigious Australia and New Zealand School of Government, along with several Australian universities and the New Zealand and Australian governments. For the last five years we have also been the provider of comprehensive education programmes for the New Zealand Police.”

Professor Quigley says the agreement also recognised Victoria’s strong international focus and comprehensive internationalisation strategy.

“Not only did Victoria attract more than 3,200 international students to Wellington in 2004, but we have several significant international partnerships in Southeast Asia. Last year, we established a new twinning programme with the Hanoi University of Technology and expanded on the existing twinning programme with King Mongkut’s University of Technology in Thailand.

“We also have substantial relationship with the universities of the region through the Greater Mekong Sub-region Tertiary Education Consortium and we also host the Chair of Malay Studies, in relationship with the New Zealand and Malaysian governments.”

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