KEY POINTS:
The number of foreign fee-paying students at schools has plummeted by about 37 per cent over five years, new figures reveal.
According to the Ministry of Education statistics snapshot of last year, 9645 overseas students were in New Zealand schools. A further 72 were here on a New Zealand International Aid and Development Agency scholarship.
That is a drop of 8.2 per cent in a year of foreign fee-paying students - a lucrative source of extra income for schools.
When tertiary institutions were included, the fall was 14.6 per cent in a year.
Over five years, the number at schools fell by more than a third, down from 15,440 in 2002.
Education New Zealand chief executive Robert Stevens said the competition for overseas students had risen dramatically in the past three years.
The drop in the number of students from China dwarfed rising interest from other countries, he said.
"We had a big bubble starting in 2002 and 2003, simply because New Zealand was the first to open up or relax immigration policies," said Mr Stevens.
"Now we've got a very intense competition with Australia and just about every other country [for students] in China."
Mr Stevens said the sector was responding by diversifying the type of students it attracted and increasing marketing in other countries.
It ran a $200,000 poster campaign in Seoul, South Korea, on 16 bus shelters, 25 taxi shelters and 1350 subway train carriages on three high-volume lines.
Mr Stevens said the three-month campaign, which ran from April, was being analysed before possible replication in other countries.
The value of the sector had decreased to around $1.9 billion, from a short-term peak of $2.2 billion.
Mr Stevens said the drop was not as dramatic as the figures might suggest as the mix of students had changed, including a rise in higher-value post-graduate students.
The Government figures showed the most foreign fee-paying students in schools came from South Korea last year, with 4503 students.
Japan was next with 1384 students, then China with 1153.
Auckland schools attracted the largest share of foreign fee-paying students: 4790.
The data also gave a more general snapshot of education last year.
It showed almost 1.3 million enrolments at educational institutions on July 1 last year, a slight drop of 0.6 per cent on a year before.
CLASS CONTEST
NZAID scholarship and foreign fee-paying students
2002: 15,440
2003: 17,574
2004: 14,543
2005: 11,369
2006: 9717
