Chris Whelan: Universities NZ CEO on international student enrolments going up

Good news for New Zealand's universities - international students enrolments are back up again.

There were 73,535 international enrolments between January to August 2024, up 24 percent compared to the same period last year.

Universities NZ CEO Chris Whelan says a majority of these enrolments are coming from China or India - but other countries are contributing too.

"We would like to grow in other markets... that's a set of ongoing conversations we'll be having, particularly with ministers and our immigration NZ colleagues." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andrew Diggins.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Okay, good news for our universities. International student numbers are
up all up. There were seventy three thousand enrollments between
January and August this year, up twenty four percent. Remember
this is tertiary, secondary and primary. The Tertiary Education Ministers
says international student enrollments at universities are now just seven

(00:22):
percent below pre COVID levels. So University's New Zealand CEO,
Chris Wheelan joins you are now good eving to see Chris, Hi,
how are you good? How big a win? Is this?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Look very pleasing to see. We are almost back to
where we were pre COVID, and it's just very pleasing
to see students coming back from our traditional markets. You know,
we knew there was strong demand and it's just good
to see it actually play out like this.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Some universities getting stronger interests than others.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
It varies a little bit, but in general was coming
back very strongly across all of our universities. There are broadly,
they're only on average, they're down only slightly pretty much
for every university from what they were pre COVID.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
China and India obviously lead the statistics. Are we giving
other students too.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Look, we're trying to We certainly still have more than
fifty percent of our students from China. It's a massively
important market for us, and you know we love having
Chinese students, but obviously we would also like to be
able to grow in other markets, perhaps a little bit
less dependent. That's a set of ongoing conversations that we'll

(01:38):
be having, particularly with ministers and immigration in immigration new
Zelling colleagues, because often it's some of the evidentiary requirements,
the requirements around things like finances and such that students
struggle from some countries to demonstrate to be able to
get here.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Universities have always put in a lot of effort to
get into national student enrollments. Have we put in even
more efforts since the Great Collapse?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Look, I don't know that we've put in any more effort.
I think it's perhaps been different effort. So we know,
you know, we've had to rebuild interest in our pipelines.
A lot of our students come through, for example, overseas agents.
We've spent a lot of time working with those agents.
We've spent a lot of time going back to university

(02:27):
fairs to make sure we're visible to our students and
it's clearly paying off.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Just one thing, primary school enrollments are up sixty nine percent.
That's about thirty thousand people. Who are these people? And
they're surely not people seeking New zeal On education, more
likely the children of immigrant workers that are here in
any part time. So is this making the statistics seem
a little bit better than they really are.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
We've always had reasonably good numbers of primary and secondary
school students. You know, what we know as a system
is that you know these You know, we don't know
necessarily that much around their backgrounds, except that obviously they're
not permanent residents or citizens, so they are recorded as
international students. We know that a lot of them do

(03:11):
continue through from primary school to secondary school and on
to tertiary education. And those that actually remain after tertiary education,
it's a small percentage, but they do add an awful
lot to our economy. So it's well worth getting those
students in through school.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
How healthy are universities and certainly after COVID and of
course also and the drop at international students and a
falling trust in tertiary education, it saw some of our
universities over the last few years, just inches from collapse.
Where are they at now?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Look, I don't think i'd characterize any of our universities
being anywhere near collapse. I think it's a challenging financial environment.
I think international students are an incredibly helpful part of
managing our way through that environment. But far more than that,
So much of the success of our universities depends on

(04:04):
having good international relationships. An awful lot of those come
out of our international students. So it's just great to
have them back.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And here's a big question, of course, do you think
we're seven percent down on what we used to have
pre COVID? Do you think we can get to that level?
In fact, do you think we can go beyond that level?

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I'm more than confident of that. We know from these
are applications for students who are wanting to start next year.
We should easily return to pre COVID levels for next year.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thank you so much. Chris Whelan is the university's New
Zealand CEO.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
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