The Labour Government urgently need to open the borders to international students as university and polytechnic job losses loom, National’s Tertiary Education spokesperson Penny Simmonds says.

“Universities and polytechnics are currently considering staff redundancies as a way of coping with declining enrolments this year.

“The Government is allowing 5,000 international students into the country next month - but universities and polytechnics can only access 2,150 students, or 43 per cent, so this concession will do little to ease the urgent staffing issues facing this sector.

“On top of that, international research now shows New Zealand is falling out of favour with international students, with this country ranked last among the major English-speaking education destinations, in a survey of more than 10,000 people from 93 countries.

“And the effects are obvious - according to the Ministry of Education in 2019, New Zealand had a little over 22,000 fulltime international students paying total tuition fees of $562 million. The figures for 2021 and 2022 are estimated to be 70 per cent of that 2019 figure.

“It is appalling that this Government has allowed international education in this country to decline to this level - and for it to now impact on the valuable tertiary teaching staff at our universities and polytechnics is unacceptable.

“We must act urgently to prevent further deterioration in this sector and that means opening up our borders and not restricting international student numbers coming here.”