KEY POINTS:
The buildings in the United Arab Emirates are shiny and new, petro-dollars are flowing freely, but an education system stuck in the 1950s is bringing some big opportunities for New Zealand exporters in the Gulf state.
Cognition Consulting is this month beginning a contract in Abu Dhabi, worth
tens of millions of dollars, to help bring its education system into the modern age.
This new contract, along with other consulting work being done around the world, has put Cognition in the top 2 per cent of all New Zealand exporters by revenue, and the company expects to have more than 100 staff working in the Middle East from this month.
Statistics NZ export figures show education services were worth $1.25 billion to New Zealand in the year to the end of September 2006 - up from $722 million in 2001.
Talk-back radio listeners could be forgiven for thinking there's everything wrong with our own education system, but Des Hammond, chairman of Cognition, says it is actually highly rated around the world. And our teachers are also pretty good at passing on their knowledge to others.
"What we have found is, Kiwi educators are very, very good at sharing their learning with other educators, in the Middle Eastern market in particular," says Hammond.
"As a result of that, we've performed strongly for three years or so in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman. And we've been invited back."
Cognition competed for the tender against bids from some of the top consulting companies in the US, Britain and Australia.
Hammond says: "I think what it comes down to is our ability to 'contextualise' the needs of the local community, to relate to the way NZ school communities operate - and develop that to suit the market place in the Middle East."
The education system in the UAE is based on some pretty old methods.
"The need for improved teaching and learning is the same as it was in New Zealand many years ago, similar to what it was many years ago."
Old-fashioned? "Very much so, what they used to call 'rote learning' in NZ is common in many Middle Eastern countries," says Hammond.
"They are moving and investing very heavily to move away from that into modern teaching practice."
One thing such wealthy, developing countries want is to participate in the global marketplace.
"Education is the key to this. It's about active participation in the continuing investment and management of the national wealth.
"They want to participate, rather than hire expats to do it all. It's about global participation.
"Internationally, New Zealand's educational performance is held in very high regard and these people have researched the changes that have taken place in NZ over the past 17 to 18 years, and they like a lot of what they see. And they want some of it."
The results of a Cognition intervention are pretty clear, says Hammond, with exam results and internal assessments improving.
The Abu Dhabi job is a three-year contract, a "public-private" partnership with six schools and the country's equivalent of the Education Ministry.
Cognition is a subsidiary of Multi- serve Education Trust, the beneficiaries of which are all NZ schools. It is fully independent of the Education Ministry, but it funds education research in NZ schools and has spent $1.4 million on such work in the past 15 months.