Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Penny Simmonds: Vocational Minister on international student numbers decreasing

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Penny Simmonds: Vocational Minister on international student numbers decreasing · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Our foreign student numbers are down. Ministry of Education shows
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: there was a forty percent decrease from the peak in
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Universities rebounding post COVID, but secondary schools and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: vocational training are lagging. Penny Simmons is the Vocational education
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: minister with me this morning, Minister.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning Ryan.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Why are we down forty percent? Still?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Taypoking tapuking has centralized everything they did all the marketing centrally.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Nobody knew what taypooking was overseas. They required everything to
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: be the same, so whether you were offering courses and
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: in Voicagoo or Auckland, you had to have the same price.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: So Auckland numbers have come back a little quicker, but
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: certainly the regions they just haven't come back at all.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: You couldn't do anything innovative or different. You couldn't do
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: things like having free English for spouse so that they
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: integrated into community. So it just killed off any innovation,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: anything that was done in the regions to particularly attract
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: international students.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So you're saying the first thing you said was that
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: they were advertising as tapooking and no one knew what
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: it was Do you mean that they didn't go out
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to the international market and say this is New Zealand.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Well they said New Zealand, but they didn't say what
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the institutions were. So you couldn't go out and market
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: yourself as Nelson Polytechnic, an MIT or Otago Polytechnique. You
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: had to be tapooking and then your branch of.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Is that important because international students would be going and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: researching those places and saying, oh, this looks good and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I can trust that one.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. And also they knew the name polytechnic. They know
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: what a polytechnic is, they know what an institute of
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: technology is. They certainly didn't know what a two people
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: what a shambos. Same thing happened in Queensland when they
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: centralized all it takes exactly the same thing happens.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So why what are we a year and a half
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  Speaker 1: in What are we What are we currently marketing ourselves.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: As they are starting to be able to market themselves individually,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: but it's only just started.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Well, what's taken you so long? I mean, fair enough,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: they bug it up, but what's taking you so long?
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Well we've got the legislation going through the House now
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to disestablish tape pooking here. But while tak pooking is there,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I can't instruct them to do anything. Why not because
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: they had their own entity.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I don't have the well, rip them up, push them.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what we're doing.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: How can it take I think, Look, if this is
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: this is a serious issue on twenty seven, this is
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: worth billions of dollars. We're forty percent down on pre COVID.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: You've got an institution that's been created by a previous
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: government you've got no control over, and it takes you
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a year and a half to even dismantle it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does because the legislation takes a long time
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: to get written. It's a really complex bit of legislation.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But also because of finances with such a mess, and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: so we're having to go through and unpicked all the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: financial difficulties. There are some that went in in debt,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: some went in with reserves, all that got apalgamated. So yeah,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: it's been a nightmare that we're unpicking it. It will
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: be undone by one January next year.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: One January we will have be free of tapooking it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And then when and from then universe politechs can start
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: advertising themselves as who they are.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: They are starting to now they've got the message toa
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: poking has got the message. They're starting to. But they've
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: only just been allowed to charge their own fees and
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: that's been a big barrier.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Penny, what is your target date for getting this number
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: back to pre COVID?
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I think it will take two years from when can
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: we get disestablished? Paper king are disestablished, so I think it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Will be come in years. January twenty twenty eight, we'll
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: have a conversation.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Penny, please do I look forward.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: To Its good to have you on the show, Penny Simmons,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Who's the Minister for Vocational and Education. For more from
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to news Talks.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.