International student enrolments at polytechnics growing

The number of international students enrolling to study at New Zealand polytechnics appears to be rebounding after borders closed during the Covid 19 pandemic. Photo / 123rf

By John Gerritsen of RNZ

Foreign students are returning to polytechnics faster than expected, Te Pūkenga says.

The institute’s polytechnics expect about 4900 fulltime equivalent international students this year, up from about 2800 last year.

In 2019, before the pandemic began, about 11,000 fulltime equivalent students from overseas studied with New Zealand Polytechnics.

Te Pūkenga deputy chief executive of delivery Gus Gilmore said enrolments were higher than forecast.

“We are seeing a rebound in international student numbers which is stronger than our forecasts actually, they’re coming back faster. The challenge is getting them into the country and getting visas approved, but certainly, there’s no shortage of demand for New Zealand as an international study destination,” he said.

Gilmore agreed the students’ fees were important for the institute’s finances given its significant deficits.

“It’s a very important piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Certainly, the contribution international students make for Te Pūkenga is significant,” he said.

International enrolments in the organisation’s hospitality and tourism courses were down a little, but were strong in business, IT, and health courses.

Speaking to RNZ from India, Unitec-Te Pūkenga head of International market development Don Sirimanne said it was good to see that agents who turned away from New Zealand while the borders were closed were once again sending students to this country.

“Because the New Zealand borders were closed for so long they had to pivot their business and now we’ve seen that these agents are coming back to New Zealand again and they’re hiring new counsellors, so that has picked up,” Sirimanne said.

New foreign students were enrolling with Unitec at a greater rate than before the pandemic began, and they were focused on largely the same areas of study as in 2019, he said.

“People are still interested in those areas that we promoted in the past like soft construction, nursing.”

However, he said some students were more focused on postgraduate courses.

Sirimanne said Unitec had kept contact with its overseas markets even when New Zealand’s borders were closed to foreign students and that contact was now paying off with renewed demand.

Chinese enrolments remained steady, but India had overtaken China as Unitec’s main source of foreign students and there was also strong demand from Sri Lanka and Nepal, he said.

“China, in terms of enrolment figures, is quite a steady market, it’s a very mature market. In terms of the enrolment figures it remains pretty much the same but in terms of the share of the market, because India has grown so much and the Indian sub-continent, it may have dropped a little bit,” he said.

Sirimanne said he expected Unitec’s total foreign student numbers would return to pre-pandemic levels by 2025.

When the borders reopened to international students last year there were fears many would be put off by changes to work rights and residence rules.

But Filipino student Pavlo Aguilos said this country’s path to residence was one the reasons he enrolled in a one-year graduate diploma at Te Pūkenga’s Unitec campus.

“I checked into universities from Australia, Canada and the US actually, but aside from being more expensive than New Zealand they take quite a long time to graduate and my priority at this time is to bring my parents here so that we can settle and hopefully migrate here,” he said.

South Korean student Siyoon Jung also planned to apply for residence once he finished his Bachelor’s degree in computer systems.

He had been in New Zealand since before the pandemic and said New Zealand would be a lot more popular with Korean students if they knew more about the country.

“To be honest New Zealand is not a popular and famous country in Korea. Most of the students just go to the US or Canada, Australia. But they don’t know how beautiful New Zealand is,” he said.

- RNZ