Immigration plays an important role facilitating New Zealand’s fifth largest export industry, namely education.
International students contribute more than $2 billion annually to New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product, supporting about 32,000 jobs.
Revenue to education providers from international fee-paying students in the year to 30 June 2010 was $664 million, an increase of 10% over 2009.
International students who choose to apply for residence also play an important role in the New Zealand labour market, particularly if they are qualified and employed in areas with skill shortages.
About one-fifth of fee-paying international students obtain residence.
In the year to 30 June 2010, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) decided 99,500 student visa applications, approving nearly 94,000 applications, of which, 65,500 were from full fee-paying international students.
These students are the backbone of our export education industry.
Our main markets for full fee-paying international students in 2009-2010, including students who applied for second and subsequent student visas, were China (19,150), India (8950), South Korea (8550), Germany (3100), Japan (2700) and USA (2600).
Indian students rise
The number of students from India has quadrupled in the past seven years.
India has overtaken China as the greatest source country of new students. In the 2009-2010 year, 5900 new students from India were granted visas, compared to 4,900 new students from China.
A 2007 report on a national survey of international students in New Zealand found that their top five reasons for choosing New Zealand were (a) English speaking country (b) Personal preference (c) Safety (d) International recognition of New Zealand qualifications and (e) Quality of education.
INZ works in partnership with other agencies in supporting the export education sector.
All education providers (primary to tertiary) hosting international students must be signatories to the Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students, which is managed by the Education ministry.
All tertiary education providers wishing to offer courses to international students must first be registered and accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and have NZQA approval of their courses.
Policy reviews
INZ recently undertook two student policy reviews.
The first review aimed to support New Zealand’s reputation as a high quality study destination by facilitating the entry of genuine students.
The second review aimed to increase the employability of international students by strengthening the incentives to study qualifications with good employment outcomes to ensure that New Zealand employers have better access to the skills they need to innovate and grow.
The worldwide network of INZ branches process student visa applications lodged with them, while the Department’s Palmerston North Student Branch processes most foreign fee-paying applications lodged in New Zealand.
Fresh initiatives
Reflecting the importance of the export education sector to the New Zealand economy, INZ undertakes various initiatives to improve its processing of the 56,000 student applications received annually onshore.
This will benefit processing during the peak processing months of February, March and July, when an average of nearly 10,000 applications are received each month.
Initiatives to expedite processing included granting interim visas to most students, effective February 7, 2011. This was one of the changes in the Immigration Act 2009 that allowed INZ to grant interim visas to students, while their applications were being processed.
This is part of a wider interim visa system.
The second initiative was changes to immigration instructions for police and medical checks for fee-paying foreign students, which became effective last year. These checks are now required every three years instead of the earlier practice of two years.
This has helped to reduce the number of applicants whose application processing was delayed because they had not provided a medical certificate. This has also saved students money.
The third step was greater profiling of applications, so that lower risk applications are processed faster and staff can devote more time to higher risk applications.
Among the other changes were (a) Recruiting additional staff and seconding staff from other branches to process student visas at peak times (b) Using resources at other INZ branches when applicable and (c) Paying closer attention to whether requests for urgency are justified.
INZ is encouraging students to apply for a student visa as soon as their study is confirmed (but no earlier than 60 days before their course starts), so that they could avoid queues and have the security of a visa before or early in their studies.
Faster assessment
Potential students can apply online if their education provider is accredited with INZ as a Student Online Partner (initial assessment of online applications is guaranteed within 48 hours).
Please ensure that you have provided information/documentation required.
At present, 30% of all manual applications are incomplete, which means processing is delayed while INZ seeks and receives the missing material.
INZ aims to ensure it has the capacity and capability to deal with all applications in a timely manner, particularly at peak processing times.
This means continuing to meet its commitment to 48-hour processing of online applications through Students Online Partners and deciding 96% of all applications (manual applications included) within 30 days, subject to applicants meeting health, character and other standard requirements.
Source: Immigration New Zealand
