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Demonstrating its overall commitment to India, New Zealand on Tuesday announced an investment of 400K NZ dollars towards internationalisation and student mobility initiatives. These include further engagement with the New Zealand Centre at IIT Delhi to include fellowship grants and the re-launch of the partial scholarships under the New Zealand Excellence Awards. Around 10 different projects are currently going on at the IIT Delhi's New Zealand centre.

The announcements were made at a roundtable session hosted at the New Zealand High Commission in the presence of David Pine, the New Zealand High Commissioner to India.

Speaking about the several initiatives taken to strengthen the educational ties between India and New Zealand, Pine said, "New Zealand and India share a longstanding relationship that has been growing through various mutually beneficial initiatives.

"The New Zealand-India Education Week, which started on April 17, allows us to lay our ear to the ground and hear the key stakeholders so that New Zealand can continue its varied partnership and collaboration in India's leading institutions."

According to Pine, over 3,000 visa applications from India have been approved recently by New Zealand and most of these applications came from students. Over 90 per cent visa applications seeking higher education opportunity in New Zealand have been approved, the official said.

Education experts from New Zealand said that the educational ties between New Zealand and India are set to strengthen following one of Education New Zealand's biggest events of the year, the India-New Zealand Education Week.

It will encourage a dialogue on research while fostering innovation and cultural exchange and cooperation in the context of international education.

Also, the New Zealand Excellence Awards (NZEA) is a unique scholarship scheme designed exclusively for Indian students. The awards are jointly funded by Education New Zealand and all the eight New Zealand universities. Since the launch of the scholarship in 2016, it has supported over 200 Indian students to pursue overseas study at the world-class universities in New Zealand.

Education New Zealand's Chief Executive, Grant McPherson, said, "New Zealand's education system is future focussed and multicultural, offering the students an opportunity to earn work-ready degrees."

"India is one of New Zealand's priority partner countries for collaborations, exchanges and student mobility. We are excited that today's announcements around the New Zealand Centre and the launch of the New Zealand Excellence Award scholarships demonstrate our commitment to India as an education partner," said McPherson.

IIT Delhi's James Gomes, Dean International, said, "The New Zealand Centre embodies IIT Delhi's efforts to embrace internationalisation, providing opportunities for new research collaborations and global exposure to our students. The first round of jointly-funded research collaboration, awarded in 2022, has helped foster collaborative, sustainable and self-supporting research programmes.

"Today's MoU has further enhanced the partnership and cooperation in research, teaching and fellowships between India and New Zealand and provides an opportunity to explore other innovative ventures.