Penny Simmonds: Vocational Minister on international student numbers decreasing

There's an expectation it will take two years to get the number of international students in vocational education back to pre-Covid levels.

There were about 75-thousand international students in New Zealand last year - 40% less than a peak in 2016.

Vocational Minister Penny Simmonds says told Ryan Bridge centralising Polytech's into Te Pukenga is a big factor, as it caused a financial mess.

She says it's been a nightmare, which is being unpicked.

Te Pukenga is being disestablished by January, with power then going back to individual Polytech's.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our foreign student numbers are down. Ministry of Education shows
there was a forty percent decrease from the peak in
twenty sixteen. Universities rebounding post COVID, but secondary schools and
vocational training are lagging. Penny Simmons is the Vocational education
minister with me this morning, Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, good morning Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Why are we down forty percent? Still?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Taypoking tapuking has centralized everything they did all the marketing centrally.
Nobody knew what taypooking was overseas. They required everything to
be the same, so whether you were offering courses and
in Voicagoo or Auckland, you had to have the same price.
So Auckland numbers have come back a little quicker, but

(00:44):
certainly the regions they just haven't come back at all.
You couldn't do anything innovative or different. You couldn't do
things like having free English for spouse so that they
integrated into community. So it just killed off any innovation,
anything that was done in the regions to particularly attract

(01:04):
international students.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So you're saying the first thing you said was that
they were advertising as tapooking and no one knew what
it was Do you mean that they didn't go out
to the international market and say this is New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well they said New Zealand, but they didn't say what
the institutions were. So you couldn't go out and market
yourself as Nelson Polytechnic, an MIT or Otago Polytechnique. You
had to be tapooking and then your branch of.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Is that important because international students would be going and
researching those places and saying, oh, this looks good and
I can trust that one.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes. And also they knew the name polytechnic. They know
what a polytechnic is, they know what an institute of
technology is. They certainly didn't know what a two people
what a shambos. Same thing happened in Queensland when they
centralized all it takes exactly the same thing happens.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So why what are we a year and a half
in What are we What are we currently marketing ourselves.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
As they are starting to be able to market themselves individually,
but it's only just started.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Well, what's taken you so long? I mean, fair enough,
they bug it up, but what's taking you so long?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well we've got the legislation going through the House now
to disestablish tape pooking here. But while tak pooking is there,
I can't instruct them to do anything. Why not because
they had their own entity.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I don't have the well, rip them up, push them.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
That's exactly what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
How can it take I think, Look, if this is
this is a serious issue on twenty seven, this is
worth billions of dollars. We're forty percent down on pre COVID.
You've got an institution that's been created by a previous
government you've got no control over, and it takes you
a year and a half to even dismantle it.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, it does because the legislation takes a long time
to get written. It's a really complex bit of legislation.
But also because of finances with such a mess, and
so we're having to go through and unpicked all the
financial difficulties. There are some that went in in debt,
some went in with reserves, all that got apalgamated. So yeah,

(03:22):
it's been a nightmare that we're unpicking it. It will
be undone by one January next year.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
One January we will have be free of tapooking it.
And then when and from then universe politechs can start
advertising themselves as who they are.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
They are starting to now they've got the message toa
poking has got the message. They're starting to. But they've
only just been allowed to charge their own fees and
that's been a big barrier.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Penny, what is your target date for getting this number
back to pre COVID?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I think it will take two years from when can
we get disestablished? Paper king are disestablished, so I think it.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Will be come in years. January twenty twenty eight, we'll
have a conversation.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Penny, please do I look forward.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
To Its good to have you on the show, Penny Simmons,
Who's the Minister for Vocational and Education. For more from
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