Foreign student industry growing but well below peaks

Foreign student numbers are up 15 percent in nine months, boosted by the weaker dollar, the Dominion Post reports.

Immigration figures for the nine months to March show that more than 21,700 new foreign students entered the country, up 3356 on the same period a year before.

These figures though are still significantly down on levels six years ago.

At its peak in 2003, the international education sector saw more than 120,000 foreign students in New Zealand. Currently the figure is at about 88,000, the Dominion Post has reported.

Students are also from a more diverse mix of countries. Numbers from the top three markets, China, South Korea and Japan, continue to decline, with Chinese students sliding from nearly 56,000 in 2003 to 20,579 last year.

But students from India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France and the United States of America are catching up. Indian students have increased threefold, and the number from Saudi Arabia grew 10-fold to 4100 in 2008.

New Zealand's foreign exchange earnings from international (or "export") education – tertiary and school level – are about $2.3 billion. It's the country's fifth largest income earner and earns about 7 percent of our export income, according to Education New Zealand.

The chairman of an English language school body reportedly believes the industry should be half a billion dollars bigger.

English New Zealand chairman Rob McKay, quoted in the New Zealand Herald recently, said New Zealand was losing international students because of immigration policies making it difficult for them to find part-time work.

Meanwhile, the sector received a boost this month with 230 education agents from 49 countries meeting with representatives from 192 local and Australian institutions at an Australia New Zealand Agent (ANZA) workshop in Auckland.

Almost half the agents represented Asian countries. Middle Eastern countries also had a strong interest in New Zealand, ANZA said in a statement.

Education New Zealand chief executive Robert Stevens, quoted in the statement, said the industry's value went well beyond its export earnings.

"As a small, export dependent economy we are critically dependent upon having an internationalisation of our educational institutions, as well as wider social networks, and international students play an absolutely vital part in this wider process of internationalisation."

Mr Stevens believes free trade agreements are important tools for boosting the export education industry in New Zealand.

Resources

The Dominion Post story is at this web page.

The ANZA statement is at this web page.

The New Zealand Herald article is at this web page.

A Subtext story from February on export education is at this web page.

A November statement from Education New Zealand on the financial value of export education is downloadable as a PDF document.

An article from Infometrics chief economist Adolf Stroombergen on export education is downloadable as a PDF document.