A remarkable investment in New Zealand education ended in Auckland on 31/05/2023, a casualty of the Covid lockdowns over the last few years. It took the form of a private school for senior secondary students: Auckland International College.

Founded in 2023 by the generous, multicultural vision of Shingo Mitsuda and Yoshitaka Kanemaru of Oshu Corp., Japan), AIC quickly attracted both domestic and international students from a variety of countries including: China; Korea; India; Malaysia; Vietnam; Japan; Hong Kong due to its provision of a campus and residential operation, both with state-of-the-art facilities for delivery of the prestigious, broadly focussed International Baccalaureate or IB 2-year Diploma curriculum.

Delivery of the IB Diploma curriculum and its administration were expertly handled by a predominantly New Zealand staff with wide-ranging international IB teaching experience. Over the 20 years of the college 1539 students graduated with the IB Diploma with an average points score between 3 to 5 in excess of world averages. In addition over 17% of each cohort achieved 40 points or more out of a possible 45 maximum and, stunningly, on average at least one student each year achieved the maximum score of 45 points. The remarkable consistency of these results over tenure of the college is a testament to dedication of the college staff, the determination of the families and the students, along with the visionary backing of the Japanese educationalists in successfully delivering, what is probably the most challenging secondary education qualification in the west.

A revolutionary aspect of the College’s educational design and operation was not just the IB compulsory curriculum which allowed students to study the natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities, including languages, and the arts – and thereby discover more accurately where their academic strengths/interests resided, rather than force early specialization. Rather, the College cultivated at the same time an ethos of raising student aspirations beyond the local to the international. It did so by encouraging students to apply for admission to the best university courses of their choice in the most highly rated universities across the globe – with those who succeeded being supported by the College’s own scholarships.

Examples of this ambitious strategy speak for themselves. It is fair to say that AIC graduates are now the Alumni of almost all of the Universities that have ranked in the top 50 of the Times Education Supplement over the existence of the college including: Oxford; Harvard; Princeton; Cambridge; Stanford; MIT; CalTech; Imperial. We also proud to note that 99.5% of students graduating from AIC gained University Entrance qualification.

While doubtlessly true that the students involved have benefited personally, with the world’s ongoing globalization and interconnectivity of cultures they will represent increasingly over time a valuable resource for New Zealand itself.