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Speaker 1: Andrew Diggins.

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Speaker 2: Okay, good news for our universities. International student numbers are

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Speaker 2: up all up. There were seventy three thousand enrollments between

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Speaker 2: January and August this year, up twenty four percent. Remember

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Speaker 2: this is tertiary, secondary and primary. The Tertiary Education Ministers

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Speaker 2: says international student enrollments at universities are now just seven

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Speaker 2: percent below pre COVID levels. So University's New Zealand CEO,

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Speaker 2: Chris Wheelan joins you are now good eving to see Chris, Hi,

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Speaker 2: how are you good? How big a win? Is this?

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Speaker 1: Look very pleasing to see. We are almost back to

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Speaker 1: where we were pre COVID, and it's just very pleasing

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Speaker 1: to see students coming back from our traditional markets. You know,

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Speaker 1: we knew there was strong demand and it's just good

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Speaker 1: to see it actually play out like this.

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Speaker 2: Some universities getting stronger interests than others.

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Speaker 1: It varies a little bit, but in general was coming

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Speaker 1: back very strongly across all of our universities. There are broadly,

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Speaker 1: they're only on average, they're down only slightly pretty much

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Speaker 1: for every university from what they were pre COVID.

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Speaker 2: China and India obviously lead the statistics. Are we giving

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Speaker 2: other students too.

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Speaker 1: Look, we're trying to We certainly still have more than

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of our students from China. It's a massively

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Speaker 1: important market for us, and you know we love having

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Speaker 1: Chinese students, but obviously we would also like to be

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Speaker 1: able to grow in other markets, perhaps a little bit

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Speaker 1: less dependent. That's a set of ongoing conversations that we'll

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Speaker 1: be having, particularly with ministers and immigration in immigration new

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Speaker 1: Zelling colleagues, because often it's some of the evidentiary requirements,

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Speaker 1: the requirements around things like finances and such that students

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Speaker 1: struggle from some countries to demonstrate to be able to

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Speaker 1: get here.

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Speaker 2: Universities have always put in a lot of effort to

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Speaker 2: get into national student enrollments. Have we put in even

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Speaker 2: more efforts since the Great Collapse?

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Speaker 1: Look, I don't know that we've put in any more effort.

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Speaker 1: I think it's perhaps been different effort. So we know,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've had to rebuild interest in our pipelines.

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Speaker 1: A lot of our students come through, for example, overseas agents.

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Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time working with those agents.

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Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time going back to university

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Speaker 1: fairs to make sure we're visible to our students and

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Speaker 1: it's clearly paying off.

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Speaker 2: Just one thing, primary school enrollments are up sixty nine percent.

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Speaker 2: That's about thirty thousand people. Who are these people? And

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Speaker 2: they're surely not people seeking New zeal On education, more

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Speaker 2: likely the children of immigrant workers that are here in

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Speaker 2: any part time. So is this making the statistics seem

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Speaker 2: a little bit better than they really are.

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Speaker 1: We've always had reasonably good numbers of primary and secondary

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Speaker 1: school students. You know, what we know as a system

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Speaker 1: is that you know these You know, we don't know

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Speaker 1: necessarily that much around their backgrounds, except that obviously they're

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Speaker 1: not permanent residents or citizens, so they are recorded as

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Speaker 1: international students. We know that a lot of them do

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Speaker 1: continue through from primary school to secondary school and on

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Speaker 1: to tertiary education. And those that actually remain after tertiary education,

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Speaker 1: it's a small percentage, but they do add an awful

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Speaker 1: lot to our economy. So it's well worth getting those

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Speaker 1: students in through school.

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Speaker 2: How healthy are universities and certainly after COVID and of

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Speaker 2: course also and the drop at international students and a

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Speaker 2: falling trust in tertiary education, it saw some of our

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Speaker 2: universities over the last few years, just inches from collapse.

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Speaker 2: Where are they at now?

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Speaker 1: Look, I don't think i'd characterize any of our universities

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Speaker 1: being anywhere near collapse. I think it's a challenging financial environment.

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Speaker 1: I think international students are an incredibly helpful part of

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Speaker 1: managing our way through that environment. But far more than that,

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Speaker 1: So much of the success of our universities depends on

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Speaker 1: having good international relationships. An awful lot of those come

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Speaker 1: out of our international students. So it's just great to

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Speaker 1: have them back.

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Speaker 2: And here's a big question, of course, do you think

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Speaker 2: we're seven percent down on what we used to have

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Speaker 2: pre COVID? Do you think we can get to that level?

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Speaker 2: In fact, do you think we can go beyond that level?

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Speaker 1: I'm more than confident of that. We know from these

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Speaker 1: are applications for students who are wanting to start next year.

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Speaker 1: We should easily return to pre COVID levels for next year.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Chris Whelan is the university's New

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Speaker 2: Zealand CEO.

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