Education New Zealand Accelerates India Skills Engagement as New Zealand–India FTA Deepens Ties

Education is moving from being primarily a student mobility story to becoming a much broader part of the New Zealand India economic relationship.

Education New Zealand’s Applied Learning & Employability Connect 2026 in New Delhi brought together seven New Zealand institutions with Indian government, education and industry stakeholders, resulting in four new institutional partnerships across business, computing, research and maritime education.

This is important because the NZ India FTA and the Strategic Partnership: Roadmap to 2030 both position education, skills and institutional collaboration as part of the wider economic relationship. The Roadmap specifically calls for more government and institutional partnerships, alongside cooperation in research, science, technology and innovation.

For New Zealand, the opportunity should therefore be viewed beyond attracting Indian students to study here. It is also about taking New Zealand education expertise into India, developing joint qualifications and research, building industry connected training programmes, and supporting the skills required by a rapidly growing Indian economy.

Four new partnerships are a good start. The larger opportunity is how we convert the FTA framework into sustained commercial and institutional outcomes for both countries.

INZBC will continue to support this shift from agreement to implementation by connecting education providers, industry and partners across New Zealand and India

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