EIT celebrated graduation this year with yet another record number of diploma, degree and post graduate qualifications conferred.

Over the last three years, the institute has recorded a steady increase in overall qualifications and higher level qualifications achieved.

The 1899 qualifications awarded to those completing certificate, diploma, degree and postgraduate programmes last year was a 23 percent increase on 2010, and well up on the qualifications awarded in 2009.

In another significant trend for the institute, EIT students are getting younger.  Last year, 54 percent of all Hawke’s Bay equivalent full-time students were aged under 25 – up from 52 percent in 2010 and about 49 percent in 2009.

This year’s graduation ceremony, staged at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House in Hastings on March 23, followed the awarding of certificates in faculty ceremonies last December.

EIT chief executive Chris Collins says graduation was a highlight of the year for the institute and Hawke’s Bay, and that was followed by another, with Tairāwhiti’s graduation held in Gisborne the following month.

“It is enormously satisfying for graduands, families and also the staff, as they see their students come across the stage to be capped.

“There are so many good stories about real success, sometimes achieved in the face of significant challenges as people juggle the demands of work and families around their studies.”