Manaaki New Zealand Scholarships

New Zealand government scholarships for citizens of eligible Pacific and Asian countries, covering full tuition, a fortnightly living allowance, travel, and insurance for full-time study. All tertiary rounds, including the last open one, are now closed.

Checked 11 Sept 2026Share

Who can apply

Citizen of an eligible Pacific or Asian country (see eligibleNationalities); Cook Islands citizens apply through their own Ministry of Education, and Tokelau citizens are currently limited to short-term training scholarships
Undergraduate study is open to Timor-Leste applicants only; every other eligible Asian country applies at postgraduate certificate, diploma, master's or PhD level
Fiji applicants apply at postgraduate level only, either in New Zealand or at one of two universities in Fiji
Apply directly through the online portal; there is no nominating national agency

Narrower than the programme’s own marketing suggests

Read the eligible-countries page before anything else, because it is narrower than it looks from the programme’s own marketing. Africa does not appear on it. The site’s own sitemap still links to pages titled for African and Latin American students, but the authoritative countries page lists only the Pacific and parts of Asia, so this entry describes eligibility as it is actually gated today, not as older pages on the same site might suggest. If you’re specifically looking at Africa-eligible government scholarships to a similar Pacific-adjacent country, the Australia Awards Scholarships (Africa) run on a comparable government model but a different eligible-country list.

Nothing open right now, and how to time a future round

There is nothing open to apply to right now, including the Samoa Foundation route that was still accepting applications as of early September 2026. No date is published for when the wider tertiary round reopens. Once it does, the system is known to overload close to deadlines and can shut early for countries that send a large volume of applications, so the official advice is to submit 3 to 10 days ahead rather than on the day itself.

Coverage is more generous than the central portal lets on

Coverage is more generous than the central government portal lets on. The nzscholarships.govt.nz site itself doesn’t itemise what the scholarship actually pays, but Victoria University of Wellington’s own page, describing the same centrally-funded scholarship it delivers, does: full tuition, a fortnightly living allowance of NZ$982 paid across all 52 weeks of the year, an establishment allowance, travel to and from New Zealand, and insurance. None of it extends to family members, so a scholar bringing a spouse or children pays for their travel, visa, insurance and living costs entirely themselves.

Built around manaakitanga, not just funding a degree

The programme’s own name carries real meaning worth understanding. Education New Zealand states the scholarship exists “to enhance the mana of partner countries and Aotearoa New Zealand through manaakitanga,” the Māori concept of hosting, supporting and honouring guests, which the programme’s own framing treats as central to the experience rather than as a decorative name. Recent scholars featured on the official site, including Cherrisse Adlawan from the Philippines and oceanographer alumnus Danny Shadrech, describe the programme in terms of long-term connection to New Zealand and their own countries’ futures, not just a funded degree.