International students thriving in joint programme
In 2021, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington partnered with the Communications University of Zhejiang (CUZ) to provide a jointly delivered undergraduate degree in Intercultural Communication.
Over the past year due to COVID-19 restrictions, staff from the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences delivered their portion of the degree online to the inaugural cohort.
Angela Joe, Director of the English Language Institute, says the partnership is proving to be a great success and the Faculty is expecting 90 enrolments of high-quality students from CUZ.
“The first cohort of 39 students majoring in intercultural communication has successfully completed their first year of studies and a much bigger second cohort is due to start in September.”
The increased enrolments and exposure in China is a positive outcome for the Faculty, and the academic staff teaching into the programme have been impressed with the high quality of students from CUZ.
“The students have really enjoyed the different approach to lectures that we have at Victoria University of Wellington. They're keen to know about life here, te ao Māori, our media, our university, everything, in preparation for coming here” says Dr Valerie Cooper, a lecturer in the programme from the School of English, Film, Theatre, Media and Communications, and Art History.
Senior Lecturer Rachael Ruegg from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies agrees, noting that the students are very engaged and hard-working.
“They are a pleasure to teach. In addition, we found them to be well-prepared academically, with a high level of English proficiency.”
Colleagues at CUZ have also found the partnership to be compelling. Dai Yuncai, the Dean of the School of Intercultural Communications and Education at CUZ has said that “the programme is very popular among students and is spoken highly of by them. My great gratitude goes to the devoted faculty and staff of Victoria University, thank you very much for your efforts and contribution!”
In the future, academic staff at Victoria University of Wellington will have the opportunity to fly to China to deliver their courses in person and students from CUZ will have the option of transferring to Wellington to complete their bachelor’s degrees. Angela Joe is looking forward to this, saying that “the outcomes from our first year of the partnership give us huge confidence going forward.”