Return of international students marks new era for sector

International education has been forever changed by the pandemic.

Now that borders have fully reopened, we hear from two students about their experiences and find out what the future looks like for the sector.

When Akira Myojo first arrived in Christchurch as an international student, she was just 14 years old and couldn’t speak a word of English. 

Two weeks later, New Zealand’s borders closed for the Covid lockdowns, forcing her to remain in the country without visiting her family in Japan if she were to continue her education.

Now, New Zealand’s borders are opened once again, and international students from across the globe are starting to trickle in. 

The 2023 academic year looks set to bring in the tens of thousands of students that New Zealand had attracted in pre-pandemic years.

Heather Knox, Manager of the English Language School at Ara Institute of Canterbury, says with the return of international students, educational institutions are busy rebuilding the international education sector. 

She says it’s not only the academic side, but “the pastoral support, the non-academic support that we provide, the accommodation provision – there’s a whole infrastructure which supports the international student experience, and all of it needs to be scaled up. “

Himasha Gunasekara, like Akira, found herself unable to return to her native Sri Lanka during the pandemic while continuing her PhD studies.

But having the support of the university and its community was vital to her well-being – especially when she and her husband discovered they were pregnant with their first child not long after the borders shut.

Knox says the international education sector will have a greater focus on mental health and pastoral care issues, and that rebuilding the sector is not about recreating the same business as we had in 2019.

“Now,” she says, “we have different products to offer, we have different organisational strategies to contribute to, and our partners are looking for different programmes. It’s like two old friends who are meeting again, after two or three years apart. I've changed, and they've changed and we still have that friendship, we still have that business relationship. But actually, we're coming together as quite different people.”