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- Minister Steven Joyce spoke of the opportunity to create a ‘Tripartite business degree’.
- His proposal would see business students from Auckland, Los Angeles, and Guangzhou spend two semesters studying in each city.
- The initiative could attract new, talented business students to New Zealand and allow them to contribute to the country’s entrepreneurial and cultural ecosystems.
“I want to see kids from Santiago, kids from Singapore, kids from Guangzhou, kids from LA, and kids from Auckland getting together, starting companies, and providing high-quality services to the consumers of this region.” – Steven Joyce
If you want to get the attention of a room full of businesspeople and government players, do what Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce did at the Tripartite Economic Summit: tell them you would like to “raise a challenge and an opportunity”.
The challenge was simple, and encapsulated when Minister Joyce asked the question, “Can we really consider a young person to have completed a business degree in this day and age without doing some study offshore?”
The corresponding opportunity is to create a ‘Tripartite Business Degree’. Business students from Auckland, Los Angeles and Guangzhou would spend two semesters studying in each of those cities.
“Imagine the perspective they would get to succeed in this Asia Pacific century.” -Steven Joyce
“Imagine the perspective they would get to succeed in this Asia Pacific century,” said Minister Joyce. Delegates to the Summit were encouraged to set the wheels in motion by speaking with their respective educational institutions about the proposal.
“Our job, as the slightly older people who are talking about the next generation,” said Joyce with a wry smile, “is to create so that platform that more of our young people in these three cities get the understanding of the opportunity and the potential of the Asia Pacific century.”
Should the idea have legs, it could represent a huge opportunity for Auckland’s educational institutions and their students. The undergraduate business programmes at the University of California Berkeley and University of Southern California are ranked second equal and tenth equal respectively within the US.
In Guangzhou, Sun Yat-sen University would be a desirable destination for Kiwi students, ranking regularly within China’s top ten universities overall (impressive in a country with over 800 of them!). Additionally, the university’s business school is one of just three mainland Chinese universities to hold the prestigious triple accreditation. Just 69 business schools hold this accreditation worldwide, from a selection of over 13,500.
Auckland University is also one of these selected few – a sign of what our own institutions can offer.
A Tripartite Business Degree featuring these institutions could open doors for Auckland students to experience teaching from some of the most impressive business faculties in the world. Perhaps more importantly, students will be “born global”, with true cross-cultural knowledge and ability.
Meanwhile, the initiative would attract new, talented business students entering New Zealand and contributing to our own entrepreneurial and cultural ecosystems.
“If we do this right, we will end up – one way or another – with a single economic area of the Asia Pacific region,” outlined Minister Joyce. And student exchange is a tangible first step towards that vision.
It’s easy, and exciting, to imagine: “I want to see kids from Santiago, kids from Singapore, kids from Guangzhou, kids from LA, and kids from Auckland getting together, starting companies, and providing high-quality services to the consumers of this region.”