Our Story: Meeting Pacific Needs in a Changing World

In the 1980s New Zealand’s economy was changing and traditional workplaces were being replaced by exciting new industries that needed fresh skills and well-trained employees.

BEST opened its doors in 1988 so that Pacific peoples had the opportunity to take their place in this new world with quality training and education that recognised their needs.

This philosophy remains as strong today - BEST is the biggest Pacific focused provider of tertiary education in the country.

The Early Days

In the early days BEST concentrated on getting Pacific peoples into the workplace. We offered fully funded Youth and Adult Training Opportunities programmes.

Moving up to Tertiary

We put our heads down and worked hard while our communities spread the word about what we had to offer. Once our Pacific graduates got a qualification and jobs, they wanted more and they wanted it at BEST.

We responded by offering tertiary programmes with a higher level of qualification to further improve job opportunities and open the option of study to degree or diploma level at other institutions. In 1997 our tertiary programmes were launched reaching diploma level in 2003.

BEST Today

Today, BEST offers 10 nationally recognised tertiary qualifications across 4 campuses in Auckland and has a student body of over 1500 students.

Staircasing

We have retained our fully-funded Adult Training Opportunities and Youth programmes, and have many students moving onto further study in our tertiary school.

Change and Growth

We are responsive to the changing needs of our students and the contribution that Pacific peoples are making to the New Zealand economy.

Our Careers and Employment Centre began as a service to help graduates find work after their studies. It has grown into a comprehensive programme which has Employment Brokers and qualified Pacific and Maori Career Consultants who provide expert career guidance.

The centre works with hundreds of employers mostly in central, south and west Auckland - to provide work-based training placements for students and permanent employment for graduates.

This service enables us to fulfill our goals to educate people for work, in work, and through work.

Changing economic times have always meant changes at BEST. The boom of the past few years in New Zealand brought more work for Pacific peoples, yet limited the chance for many to study and up-skill for better job opportunities while working full-time.

So in 2001, we introduced e-learning to give our Pacific students the opportunity for flexible learning and the ability to do part of their studies on-line from home.

From just 30 students who took part in our e-learning launch, we now have more than 800 studying on-line, and in 2007 we launched our own dedicated e-learning website, called Fresh-e.