Established in 1990, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand is a public institution which is considered as the national provider of open and distance learning education. It was developed as a technical college in 1946 and in 1963 it was named as a technical correspondent institute majorly offering theory training in trade subjects. Later on, it was renamed to its current name in 1990. The institute has an advisory group that provides it with a student’s point of view so as to develop new ideas.

Being a distance learning education institution, the institute offers to learn through online resources. It caters education at a national level to more than 40,000 students every year. The students can access online textbooks via email. The institute offers undergraduate programmes, certificate programmes and diploma level programmes. The institute is known to be in association with industry training organisations and several private and public sector clients. The academic curriculum includes a wide range of subjects, namely social work, business, trades & engineering, horticulture & agriculture, art & design, communication studies, mathematics, psychology, pharmacy, environmental studies, humanities, social sciences, computing & information technology, law & legal, and library & information studies.

With a lot of options available, the students get a great opportunity to choose as per their area of interest. The students are taught by experienced faculty members. They also get a chance to work with notable organisations as interns under professionals. The students are allowed to reach out to the teachers in case of any query. A number of alumni have bagged great placement opportunities at renowned companies. Many of them are working with big organisations or have conducted research in a particular field