University lecturers meet in Tonga [1]
Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 13:51. Updated on Monday, May 5, 2014 - 15:41.
More than 60 lecturers and professors from New Zealand and Australia met in Tonga July 8-10 for their bi-annual conference on Communication Skills in University Education.
'Ema Foliaki, a lecturer at Auckland University and the co-ordinator of the Nuku'alofa conference said that this bi-annual gathering brings together lecturers, and educators to hear presentations and to exchange views on how to enhance their communication skills, "between students and staff and between students and students.
"The end result is for students to be able to pass exams, to be able to write better essays, and to be able to write better reports. In the long term they can go back to their communities and be good communicators."
'Ema said that Auckland University was the convenor of this year's conference, and after choosing the theme, 'The International Dimension of Our Work', they felt that it would be most appropriate to give the gathering an international dimension by having it somewhere exotic.
'Ema said that Tonga was chosen because it is different but it is not too far away from Australia and New Zealand. Participants at the conference come from the University of Auckland, University of Waikato, Massey University, Waikato Polytechnic, the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, Victoria University, Sydney University, Monash University and the Australian National University.