Aussie Edtech company expands into NZ to ease newsletter woes

Teachers and school administrators will be able to utilise a new platform when sending out newsletters to parents and friends of the school.

Australian eNewsletter platform Schoolzine is expanding into New Zealand. The platform is currently used by hundreds of schools across Australia.

Schoolzine enables schools to digitise their communications to parents and the wider school community and increase and monitor engagement.

The Sunshine Coast company, which started out of the Innovation Centre on the Sunshine Coast eight years ago, is one of Australia's fastest growing eNewsletter platforms, and along with the announcement it is expanding into New Zealand, the Edtech firm has announced the appointment of Craig Josic as its new chief digital officer (CDO).

Josic, who has been involved in a range of education and technology-based projects, will be responsible for the end-to-end strategy, design and implementation of Schoolzine's digital roadmap.

"I'm excited to be Schoolzine's first CDO, and one of only a few in a CDO position in the education sector of Australia, and am looking forward to engaging with key stakeholders and collaborating with new partners as we expand internationally," Josic says.

Now offering their digital solutions to schools in all states and territories of Australia, Schoolzine has given over $600,000AUD in revenue back to Aussie schools through its innovative rebate system and sees New Zealand, which is geographically closer than many of its schools in Australia, as a logical new market.

Phil Reardon, founder and chief executive officer of Schoolzine, says New Zealand education sector representatives at the EduTECH event, where the company announced the expansion into New Zealand, showed strong interest in the solution.

"They seem particularly interested in the ability for the school to speed up the newsletter production process," Reardon explains. "The feedback from our Aussie schools is that it saves them a lot of time and money in getting their key messages out, and Kiwi schools face these issues too.

Both Josic and Reardon will be attending the NZ Principals' Federation Conference on June 30 in Wellington, New Zealand, and say they are looking forward to working with local organisations and educational partners in New Zealand such as the Waikato Principal's Association and the Ministry of Education.

While visiting New Zealand, the pair will be on the scout for local talent to recruit for their New Zealand-based team, and to find a suitable location to set up their New Zealand office.