New Course Cohorts and 'First' for ECE Degree at Rotorua Graduation

This week’s graduation ceremony in Rotorua will celebrate the Institute’s first ever male Early Childhood Education degree graduate, as well as student cohorts from several new courses.

Hayden Howe, 25, from Tokoroa will be awarded the Bachelor of Teaching, Early Childhood Education at the Mokoia graduation ceremony tomorrow (Wednesday 28 March). He will be joined by seven other ECE graduands and 550 graduands in total.  Hayden is the first man to graduate from the course at Toi Ohomai and is already working part-time at a Tokoroa preschool.

The Mokoia ceremony will also see student cohorts graduating from several new courses, including the Graduate Diploma in Creative Entrepreneurship, the Level 5 NZ Diploma in Applied Science and a new suite of IT Diploma courses focusing specifically on networking, software development, web development and design, and technical support.

A total of 167 postgraduate students will also be graduating tomorrow from Mokoia campus, out of 265 students completing postgraduate courses during 2017 across all campuses. Mature students aged over 40 have also been studying at Toi Ohomai in greater numbers, with retail, introductory IT, and postgraduate courses being the most popular. In particular, a total of 162 mature students aged over 40 completed the NZ Certificate in Computing (User Fundamentals) (Level 2) last year, up from 38 the previous year. 

Toi Ohomai offers students a range of course options from foundation and certificate courses right through to postgraduate qualifications. Executive Dean Teaching, Learning and Research Dr Amanda Torr said it was heartening to see graduands across all tertiary levels celebrating this week.

“Completing any course of tertiary study is definitely something to celebrate regardless of where students are on their study pathway. We are so proud of all our students and it’s wonderful to see them being honoured for their fantastic achievements,” Dr Torr said.