The culinary students who couldn’t boil an egg

Universities have long been concerned about the potential damage to our international reputation from rogue private companies offering dubious tertiary qualifications to less than genuine students, seeking a fast track to New Zealand residency.

Over just three years (2013 to 2016), the numbers of international students in the non-university tertiary sector swelled from 56,000 to 85,000. The number of students from India alone more than doubled from 10,795 to 26,431.

NZQA has taken action against 27 non-university tertiary institutions in the last 15 months to crack down on overcrowded classrooms, dubious marking of students’ work and suspicions about the English language skills of foreign students. Actions taken include enrolment bans, orders to cease teaching specific courses and cancelling registration.

By comparison, our eight universities saw a planned, steady growth of around 3,300 genuine students over this same period, just 446 of whom were from India. In all, 6% of New Zealand universities’ international students came from India in 2016.

Universities’ focus is on delivering high quality education to domestic and international students. Currently over 28,000 international students are enrolled across the eight universities. They are high quality students - with 40% of students studying at post-graduate level and 16% at doctorate level.

Universities have strict criteria in place to ensure international students have the academic ability, English language skills, resources to enrol (including sufficient funds), and the potential to succeed at a New Zealand university.

Universities also have pastoral care provisions in place, and adhere to the government’s Code, to ensure these students are welcomed, valued and have an enjoyable study experience.

The care and checks have paid off.

The just-released independent International Student Barometer found that 92% of international students choose to study in New Zealand because of the reputation of our universities, research quality (91%), personal safety (93%), and earning potential of students’ chosen degree from their university (87%). 

Although our universities perform extremely well, it is sobering to see that the vast majority (88%) of students did consider other countries. The reality is we’re competing against Australia, USA, the UK and Canada to attract high-quality students to study in New Zealand.

So, this is an important and complex sector not to be taken lightly or taken for granted. It is the country’s 4^th largest export earner after tourism, dairy and meat. Last year it earned the country $4.3 billion, of which universities contributed nearly $1.2 billion.

But it also needs to be remembered these are individual young people studying far away from home, who deserve a high-quality study experience. They’re not sacks of milk powder or logs of wood.

Universities will be encouraging Government not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It needs to sort out dodgy providers, while clearly signalling that New Zealand remains open to, and welcomes genuine, high-quality students.