The ICEF Australia New Zealand Agent Workshop 2019 will be held in Darwin this week. Agents will visit some of the Northern Territory’s education facilities as well as meet at the Darwin Convention Centre for 3 days.

Darwin is an ideal location for the Workshop because the Northern Territory’s education sector is internationally regarded for the depth and diversity of its research, teaching and training activity. International education is one of the Territory’s largest exports.

Education programs with China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and other Asian nations draw hundreds of students to both secondary and tertiary study in the NT every year. Students receive globally recognised Australian qualifications at the secondary and higher education levels.

The NT’s university, Charles Darwin University (CDU), is ranked in the top 2% of universities in the world by Times Higher Education and in the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. It delivers more than 75 nationally recognised and accredited programs to international students and is also a world-leading online education provider—some 75% of the university’s higher education students study online.

The Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education was established as an educational institution to provide tertiary education to Indigenous Australians through education and training programs. The Institute also plays a strong role in the area of Indigenous creative arts, Indigenous language maintenance and linguistics and in informing future Indigenous education. The Institute is home to the CALL collection, a digital collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language materials. The Institute and CDU have also established The Australian Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Education which is focussed on delivering higher education, undergraduate and post graduate course work programs for Indigenous Australians.

The NT Department of Education operates an early learning programme for children up to five years of age, Families as First Teachers Programme. The programme operates in 30 remote Aboriginal schools as well as two schools in Darwin. It is delivered by a local Aboriginal family liaison officer and a qualified teacher. The programme plays an important role in promoting the position of working women in remote communities, encouraging job sharing to allow mothers with family and cultural commitments to work part-time.

The NT also has a fast-growing reputation in oil and gas education and training through the North Australian Centre for Oil and Gas (NACOG) at CDU. The centre is located close to Timor-Leste and South-East Asia, and students can access a wealth of understanding about NT conditions and their potential impact on resources.