Front row (L-R) – Puasina (Samoa), Dovena (Solomon Islands), Susan (Wintec | Te Pūkenga International Student Services Advisor), Vali (Papua New Guinea).
Pacific Short Term Training Scholarship (STTS) recipients are studying at Wintec | Te Pūkenga to gain skills they can take home to improve their local communities.
After a three year break due to Covid, Wintec | Te Pūkenga is again home to a vibrant group of scholars from the Pacific Islands, thirsty for knowledge and skills that they can take back with them to improve their communities. The group of eleven scholars are here in New Zealand for between 6 months and a year, thanks to Short Term Training Scholarships (STTS) from the New Zealand Government. They have come here from Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and Tuvalu, and range in age from 25-51.
Studying a wide range of subjects across all three Wintec | Te Pūkenga campuses in Hamilton, their chosen careers are as diverse as their homelands, spanning business to horticulture, engineering to IT, and electrical to automotive.
Front row (L-R) – Barao (Kiribati), Amelia (Tonga) and Keukeu (Tuvalu).
Pastoral support is so important to the scholars, who have moved to a new country leaving behind their family support networks. For some, like Dovena who has come from the Solomon Islands to study accounting, it has also meant having to leave behind children to take up the opportunity.
“I have a 3 year old girl at home and that will be a challenge for me as a mother.”
Karen Kemsley, Wintec | Te Pūkenga International Student Services Manager, is always proud to see the strong, heartfelt and genuine relationship that Susan and the team build with our international ākonga.
“We have had the opportunity to welcome, settle, nurture and uplift each of our Pacific scholars by extending our usual manaakitanga processes, pastoral care and support systems, and we cherish the thoroughly authentic, two-way learning and development that has taken place from having them in our care.”
