Parliament needs to consider the relationship between domestic and international students as it works its way through the Education Amendment Bill No 4, says TEU national president Sandra Grey.

The Ministry of Education is projecting, with the help of a new crown agency, the number of international students in polytechnics and universities triple by 2025.

“It is great to have international students in our classrooms, as they provide useful insights and learning for our students, classes, and communities, but there have been problems with the financial stability of tertiary institutions that can become overly dependent on the income they generate from international students,” said Dr Grey. “This speaks to the need to have some cap in terms of the proportion of international fee paying students at each institution it seems.”

Currently the bill itself does not outline a strategy as to how rapidly growing our international student market might support the provision of education to domestic students.  Yet domestic students are, on average, more likely to stay here and contribute their skills and knowledge to the skills shortages in their communities.

“The concern is that a great influx of international students will be at the expense of domestic students, in particular those that may face barriers to entering tertiary education, or alternatively will simply be added workload for staff.”

However, Dr Grey says there could be some immediate financial benefits from the Bill.

“It would be fantastic to have a new Crown entity if it meant individual institutions stopped sending their vice-chancellors, chief executives and other luminaries oversees to tout for business.”