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Speaker 1: Got some good news I think around international student numbers.

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Speaker 1: This year. The total number of arrivals in the first

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Speaker 1: two terms exceeded all of last year, so enrollments are

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Speaker 1: up six more than seventy three and a half thousand

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Speaker 1: are on the books. University of Auckland Vice Chancellor of

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Speaker 1: Dawn Freshwaters will this Dawn, very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Where does this leaders compared pre COVID? Are we back

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Speaker 1: there yet or not?

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Speaker 2: Actually we're not quite back there yet, but if you

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Speaker 2: look at in aggregate the seven percent that most of

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Speaker 2: the universities overall are still behind the pre pandemic levels,

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Speaker 2: we have surpassed our pre pandemic enrollments in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: three at the University of Auckland. So we're seeing significant growth,

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Speaker 2: great green shoots coming across particularly our New Zealand school

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Speaker 2: market and across our Auckland online offerings. We've had a

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Speaker 2: faster recovery I think than most other New Zealand universities.

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Speaker 2: That's particularly due to our strong reputation internationally. But I

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Speaker 2: have to say, of course, you know, if we're going

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Speaker 2: to continue to maintain and respond to this significant demand

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Speaker 2: and the increasing demand which is a testimony to our

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Speaker 2: higher education system and the quality of it. Then we

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Speaker 2: are going to need to make sure that we continue

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Speaker 2: to support that international growth on visas and the demand

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Speaker 2: for those visa processing time to be critical in influencing

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Speaker 2: these conversion rates.

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Speaker 1: Because going to ask you about that, are you happy

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Speaker 1: with the system the way the demand? Then the visa applications,

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Speaker 1: what they do after they maybe graduate here and get jobs.

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Speaker 1: Is the system working.

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Speaker 2: Well? There's two things here. The first is once you

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Speaker 2: see that increase in demand, so applications are up twenty

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Speaker 2: four percent on the year before the pandemic, and post

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Speaker 2: grad particularly postgrad international are up, which is fantastic for

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Speaker 2: our nation. But we won't know well until the new

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Speaker 2: year what this translates to, and that's you know, in

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Speaker 2: terms of additional enrollments. These are processing times become critical

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Speaker 2: in influencing the conversion rate. There's already some significant work

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Speaker 2: going on in the system automation and digitizing, and of

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Speaker 2: course we're looking at adding some additional and support into

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Speaker 2: the system ourselves for conversion rates, but we do need

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Speaker 2: to work really closely with Immigration News in on making

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Speaker 2: sure that happens.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm super excited that the numbers are coming back.

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Speaker 1: Dawn Freshwater the University of All convised Chancellor us to

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Speaker 1: spect that something in Australia because Australia has turned it

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Speaker 1: into a just an absolute disaster demand and Australia's through

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Speaker 1: the roof. Albanese is panicked because they link it to

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Speaker 1: jobs and housing and they've got huge troubles in that area,

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Speaker 1: so they've started kepping the numbers. So we're probably picking

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Speaker 1: up something there as well. For more from The Mic

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Speaker 1: Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be from

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