Dawn Freshwater: Auckland University Vice Chancellor on the need for fast visa processing to maintain international student numbers

Auckland University's keen to work with Immigration New Zealand in a bid to boost international enrolments. 

Data shows enrolments are up year-on-year but lag around 7% behind pre-Covid levels. 

Auckland University Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater told Mike Hosking there's already some work going on in terms of automation and support for international applications. 

She says visa processing times are critical. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Got some good news I think around international student numbers.
This year. The total number of arrivals in the first
two terms exceeded all of last year, so enrollments are
up six more than seventy three and a half thousand
are on the books. University of Auckland Vice Chancellor of
Dawn Freshwaters will this Dawn, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Where does this leaders compared pre COVID? Are we back
there yet or not?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Actually we're not quite back there yet, but if you
look at in aggregate the seven percent that most of
the universities overall are still behind the pre pandemic levels,
we have surpassed our pre pandemic enrollments in twenty twenty
three at the University of Auckland. So we're seeing significant growth,

(00:43):
great green shoots coming across particularly our New Zealand school
market and across our Auckland online offerings. We've had a
faster recovery I think than most other New Zealand universities.
That's particularly due to our strong reputation internationally. But I
have to say, of course, you know, if we're going

(01:03):
to continue to maintain and respond to this significant demand
and the increasing demand which is a testimony to our
higher education system and the quality of it. Then we
are going to need to make sure that we continue
to support that international growth on visas and the demand

(01:26):
for those visa processing time to be critical in influencing
these conversion rates.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Because going to ask you about that, are you happy
with the system the way the demand? Then the visa applications,
what they do after they maybe graduate here and get jobs.
Is the system working.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well? There's two things here. The first is once you
see that increase in demand, so applications are up twenty
four percent on the year before the pandemic, and post
grad particularly postgrad international are up, which is fantastic for
our nation. But we won't know well until the new
year what this translates to, and that's you know, in

(02:08):
terms of additional enrollments. These are processing times become critical
in influencing the conversion rate. There's already some significant work
going on in the system automation and digitizing, and of
course we're looking at adding some additional and support into
the system ourselves for conversion rates, but we do need

(02:30):
to work really closely with Immigration News in on making
sure that happens.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well, I'm super excited that the numbers are coming back.
Dawn Freshwater the University of All convised Chancellor us to
spect that something in Australia because Australia has turned it
into a just an absolute disaster demand and Australia's through
the roof. Albanese is panicked because they link it to
jobs and housing and they've got huge troubles in that area,
so they've started kepping the numbers. So we're probably picking
up something there as well. For more from The Mic

(02:55):
Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be from
six am weekday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio