News 12/4 – John Wright Markets for SIT

April 12th 2010 at 7:31am, By Dave Guerin

WITT Going International WITT is building up its international student numbers again, but it not repeating the extravagant, but unsuccessful, marketing approach of a previous CEO. They seem to be being conservative and focusing on their strengths, which is good, although their marketing budget may be tight. They have 150 international students now.
From SIT to NZRU SIT Council Chair Graham Cooney is set to be elected to the NZ Rugby Union Board.
From Cricket to SIT John Wright, great NZ cricketer and former Indian cricket coach, will front SIT’s marketing in India. SIT wants to double its current 120 Indian students and will use Wright in their promotion, including a trip to India next week. There will also be five full fees scholarships for Indian students presented in Wright’s name. I think it’s a masterstroke really, as Wright has enormous name recognition through India’s greatest sport. If SIT manages it right, they’ve solved their marketing cut-through issues – all they’ll need to do is have an offering behind it that can capitalise on greatly increased awareness of their services.
Indian Minister Here Speaking of India, their HR Development Minister arrived here on Sunday, according to the Auckland News.net, to talk about bilateral cooperation over education.
Performance-Based Enrolment OUSA reports that the University of Otago will now suspend students from university for two years if they fail more than half of their credits for two years running. This in line with Steven Joyce’s musings about tightening up student loans but is most likely to be a result of continued caps on university enrolments. If you must cut enrolments somewhere it seems reasonable to cut those who have tried but not succeeded.
Uni Games This Week The Uni Games are in Invercargill this week with up to 800 people set to hit town. The band OpShop will be playing at Friday’s closing ceremony and will release a new single on the night.
Students and Masters Chris Ford blogs about how the Masters’ Games (held in Dunedin at the University campus last year) should be given the same negative coverage as the Undie 500 and other student events, and that the University of Otago has a draconian Code of Conduct – I agree on the latter, although the University is sick of having their reputation trashed every year by students and probably ran out of ideas. On the Masters’ vs students’ behavious issue, there’s a big difference – sure both groups apparently get drunk, urinate in public and have sex in the bushes, but the Masters’ Games event didn’t end in drunken people taking over a road, burning couches or having a confrontation with the police. Mild misdemeanours that aren’t doing anyone any harm are quiet different from starting fires and throwing things at the police.