International students who study in New Zealand face a number of challenges: the three most significant are a change of culture, a completely new type of education system, and a lack of understanding of certain technological aspects in their choice of study. In the first five or six weeks in New Zealand, they often report feeling completely lost. As the coordinator of postgraduate IT students at EIT’s Auckland campus with around 350 international students, Dobrila felt a responsibility to confront the problem.

The main objective of this research project is to design a mentoring programme for international students in New Zealand Polytechnics, helping them to succeed in their education and to access employment. Specifically in this first phase, Dobrila designed the programme to offer a support system by matching each new IT student, with a mentor within their first weeks in the country. Students in their second semester are asked to volunteer to be mentors to new students. The pilot mentoring programme began in March 2018 for computing students on the Auckland campus. The preliminary results are encouraging and indicate that students feel more supported with mentors, and mentors feel empowered with their role of providing help.

The second phase will roll out this programme to the Health and Business School at the Auckland Campus. The third phase will extend this research to other polytechnics in NZ (Otago Polytechnic, Capable NZ and Unitec) to investigate other institutions’ experiences in their student mentors’ programme.  The final phase will extend this investigation to mentoring in the work place. The research will investigate educational, cultural and technological aspects of the programme.

Preliminary results will be presented at the Te Pae Tawhiti,  Learning and Teaching Conference in Hawke’s Bay in 20-21 September 2018.

Dobrila Lopez Project leader

Postgraduate IT coordinator, Auckland campus