Educators are divided over using the promise of jobs and permanent residence to entice foreign students to this country, Radio New Zealand reports.
Unitec's international student office. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Work rights and immigration points are regarded as important incentives for attracting international students in the face of stiff competition from countries including Australia and Canada. Some say that is fine, but others worry the balance has tipped too far.
Official figures show 37 percent of the students who came to New Zealand five or six years ago stayed on to work, and in the 2013-2014 financial year, 42 percent of skilled migrants were previously students here. Educators expect those percentages to grow because Indian enrolments are growing fast, and they are generally more interested in work and settlement than other student groups.
Education New Zealand chief executive Grant McPherson said employment and immigration had become more important for international students, but he did not believe tertiary institutions were making those the focus of their offering.
But at private tertiary institution the Auckland Institute of Studies, president Richard Goodall told Radio New Zealand's Insight programme the emphasis on employment and settlement had changed the institution.
The chairperson of language school association English New Zealand, Darren Conway, said it was appropriate to have a pathway to migration for foreign students, however he worried that some institutions were going too far in promising employment and residence.
“You can't sell what you can't guarantee. For example, if you're promising those sorts of outcomes it puts a lot more pressure on you to pass people doesn't it? So there's an ethical blurring there. And we don't as institutions control the settlement outcome so I do have some level of discomfort about the orientation of those sorts of organisations.”