MEDIA RELEASE
January 14 2008
Wintec Welcomes Pasifika Pte Onto Campus
Next Monday sees the arrival of students from Kaute' Pasifika onto our city campus - one of the Waikato's leading
private training enterprises providing vocational learning for the Pasifika community, lead by CEO Peta Karalus (RGON BA
(Hons), MA (Policy and Health Perspective). This is a rare example (only the second time) in New Zealand that a tertiary
provider has invited a PTE to operate on its campus.
Wintec regional relationship manager, Edgar Wilson says it's great to see Wintec working with PTEs, rather than
competing against them. "The benefits to both Kaute' Pasifika and Wintec are significant and this illustrate how serious
Wintec's commitment to the tertiary education strategy is," He said. "Kaute Pasifika has been recognised by the Tertiary
Education Commission as a sound provider of foundation education for Pacific Island people - it is a real honour to have
them move onto our campus. We're providing them with facilities and resources that are underutilised and in turn we're
able to raise our profile within the Pasifika community so it makes good sense for both organisations." Kaute' Pasifika,
which has around 3 staff and 23 students (10 Training Opportunity students during the day and 13 ESOL students doing an
ACE programme in the evenings), will be based on Wintec's City campus with access to library and other services,
including computer labs.
As well as receiving a formal welcome, Kaute' Pasifika staff and students will attend Wintec's Pasifika Orientation day
on February 13th. "It will be great to see Wintec staff and students making their counterparts at Kaute' Pasifika feel
welcome on campus. The training that these students are doing gives them an opportunity to progress to study at Wintec
in the future so this is our chance to show what we can offer," Mr. Wilson said.
ENDS