Recession seen as one reason for boom in foreign students

The number of international students choosing to study in New Zealand rose sharply in the past year.

Ministry of Education figures show that between January and August, 76,562 international fee-paying students took up studies in New Zealand, up 5.5 per cent on the 72,540 who came last year.

The amounts charged to education providers by the Ministry of Education increased by 7.8 per cent from $2.4 million in 2008 to $2.6 million this year.

Last year, "export education"' was one the top five earners for the economy with dairy, tourism, meat and mineral fuels.

Education New Zealand is the umbrella industry body for organisations involved in teaching foreign students.

Its communications specialist, Michelle Waitzman, said there were several possible reasons for the increase over the past year.

One was New Zealand being seen as good value for money.

"Being a global recession, people are looking for cheaper options."

She said Auckland continued to be the most popular city for study as a lot of students were used to living in a big city and many had relatives in the region.

The biggest increase in student numbers came from India and Saudi Arabia.

She said the reason for the increase in students from countries such as China and India was the growing number of middle-class families who could afford to send their children overseas to study.

More students arrived from Saudi Arabia because of their Government's scholarships.

"International predictions say that the number of globally mobile students will keep increasing."

Despite growth over the past year, the number of students was down 22 per cent on the 2003 high of 97,905.

Ms Waitzman said the high number of international students five years ago occurred when there were fewer countries competing for students.

New Zealand was one of the first countries to open its doors to Chinese students and since then many more options had become available.