Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Geoff Bilbrough: Education NZ General Manager on the rising interest in New Zealand from international students

Transcript

Geoff Bilbrough: Education NZ General Manager on the rising interest in New Zealand from international students · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The international student numbers are up seventy three thousand enrollments
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: between January and August this year. That's up twenty four
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: percent compared to the same period last year. The numbers
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: are up six percent on twenty twenty three. Totals already
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: still not back to pre COVID levels, though we are
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: seven percent shy of that. Jeff bilbra Is with Education
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: New Zealand. This is a Crown entity set up to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: promote us basically as a study destination to the world.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Jeff, good morning, good morning, how are you today, Thanks
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: leaving me on the show.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Great to have you here. This is obviously a big
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: export earner for us. Why, yes, the numbers are good,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but why aren't we back to you or doing what
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the Aussies are doing and beating their pre COVID levels.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Oh well, the first thing to note is that in
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: just two terms that we've had more enrollments than we
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: had in all of last year. So that's a good
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: thing to celebrate. Regarding the Australians, what happened and to
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the Canadians to some extent, what happened during the pandemic
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: is both countries decided to use international students as are
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: economic consentive to help their economy local economies, and they
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: both developed what were quite welcoming policies for international students.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Sadly that had not good effects in both countries. And
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: what we're now seen is both Canada and Australia are
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: bringing in cats to international students. In Canada, the student
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: experience was particularly poor and there were reports of students
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: having to use food beats and some sleeping rough and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: in Australia they lost public support for international education. Now
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: we haven't had either of those experiences the New Zealand.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Our research suggests that over eighty percent of international students
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: rate their experience very highly and by far the bulk
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: majority of New Zealand is more than seventy percent. Still
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: have very positive experiences and positive perceptions of New Zealand.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: So both Australia and Canada had very welcoming policies. They
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: got lots of students and it's caused them problems shutting down.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: But they did get the cash too, didn't they. You know,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that's the outside to it. I suppose cats that you're
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: talking about that Australia is going to put in will
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: they benefit us?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely? So what's happened now is that the Australian and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: the Canadian policies look a lot more like us. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: if you think of it as a running race, they
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: might have had a bit of a head start before,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: but now they're back at the starting line alongside us,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: and so we're starting to see a lot of interest.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: The agent networks that we have offshore teams work with
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: them daily. They're telling us that there's a lot of
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: interest in New Zealand. We'll do a brand health monitor
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and we've just got some initial results. I can't give
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: you the numbers, but I can tell you that it's
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: positive and it looks like some of the awareness that
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: we're getting and some of the interests is at the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: expense of the Australian. So definitely it's a good period
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: for New Zealand. But I think we need to recognize
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that the sort of the steady growth that we've had
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: over the past three years since the border has reopened
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: has been to the benefit of both the sector and
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the student and the sect that has been able to
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: build their capacity back steadily and the students experience has
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: continued to be good through that period.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Without a sort of rip shit and bustling like Australia
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and Canada have done. Jeff, My words, not yours, Jeff, Jeff,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: thank you very much for being on the very Ryan
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Jeff Pilb, who is with education in New Zealand. For
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: News Talks it be from five am weekdays, or follow
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio