GM: We were established by amalgamating four different areas out of the New Zealand government or quasi government, so from a trade and investment area, from our foreign affairs, from our ministry of education and there was a group called Education New Zealand Trust, a government funded entity, all doing different things in international education.

The trust got funded by the industry through a levy. That levy got split, half of which went to marketing and promoting and the other half went to pastoral care. And that pastoral care is really important because, one, it acts as a bit of a guarantee for those students that might get involved with a rogue provider or if something goes wrong, the transfer of students that was still there to different parts of New Zealand got covered through that. Any institution that wants to have an international student in their school must be a signatory to a code of care. New Zealand led the world when we introduced a voluntary code in 1996, and it’s now mandatory.

“Any institution that wants to have an international student in their school must be a signatory to a code of care”

The PIE: What’s required under the code of pastoral care?

GM: It’s not prescriptive per se, but it’s quite a strong guidance on what they need to do and what they’ve signed up to deliver. It ranges from how they’re going in their courses to providing support at the institution but also outside of school hours, if they’re having trouble in their housing, etc.

The PIE: Does the levy still exist in the same way?

GM: It still exists but it’s quite a small amount of the total funding that goes into international education. It’s roughly about NZ$2-3m but the total funding that we get is NZ$30m. We report back to the industry regularly anyway and we specifically highlight what we’ve done with the levy.

The PIE: And do you feel like you have a very close relationship with all your stakeholders then?

GM: I do, actually. I think in the beginning everybody was having a tough time – the global financial crisis, the earthquakes, some lack of security around where the industry was going. I think industry engagement is very high at the moment; we get a lot of great support from the different universities, polytechnics, schools.

“The alignment of ourselves with other government agencies has been important”

But while we’ve had an increase in funding, we can’t do it on our own. So that alignment of ourselves with other government agencies has been important. With immigration in particular– work rights have changed because we had a very close relationship with Immigration [New Zealand] and others around the need to align these things in a much bigger way if we want be successful. Work rights is a really interesting one, because not all students actually work when they get to a country, but it’s the value of the option to work that goes into their decision making, and if that option’s not there then the decision’s made for you.

The PIE: What work rights are available?

GM: You may be able to work for up to 20 hours a week if your full time programme – it can be anything, undergraduate, a certificate or a diploma – is a minimum of two years.

The PhD is a really attractive package; PhDs pay domestic fees, you can work 40 hours per week, which is full time work, and after you’ve completed your PhD you can stay two years. At master’s level it is still international fees, but you can work 20 hours a week.

For PhD students if your spouse is with you, your spouse can also work and your children can attend New Zealand schooling, no international fees.

The PIE: What proportion is your university intake?

GM: Twenty-two percent of all students coming in. We have quite a sizable secondary school sector and we offer a really great secondary school experience.

“Safety and the care of the student is absolutely at the centre of what we do”

The PIE: Why do you think the secondary schools have done so well?

GM: One reason is our relative safety and just about all of our secondary school students are in homestays– that’s a great experience. I’ve had Japanese students stay with us and you actually want to show off your country and they get to stay with a family and feel part of it. Every family has to have a police check done, so again safety and the care of the student is absolutely at the centre of what we do.

The PIE: From here to the next five years, what is the aim of Education New Zealand? Are you keen to grow numbers?

GM: There’s an overall industry target given in a leadership statement issued by the Government in 2011, to double the value of the industry to NZ$5bn. At the moment it’s about NZ$2.85bn and it’s the fifth largest export earner, it employs about 30,000 people.

So it’s a major economic contributor, but the target is value, not a number of students approach. Increasing numbers is one thing but how do we add value to the student? That comes through things like much better product and programme development.

We’ve got three key roles. The first one is the student attraction piece, which is pretty much the majority of what we’re about. The second piece is the export of education, that’s things from consulting services to taking our qualifications framework and helping other nations; one of our polytechnics is in a joint venture with a Spanish operator to run and operate a College of Excellence in Saudi Arabia, so that type of idea. New Zealand has been historically a bit slow off the mark on what everybody calls transnational education.

The third piece, which is relatively new, is how do the international students transition into the workforce in the areas that are good for New Zealand’s economy? There’s quite a bit of work going on about where the skill shortages are in New Zealand over the next 10 years. We’re a small country.

“In the next 10 years there will be 100,000 jobs in those primary industries. That’s 100,000 new jobs requiring qualifications”

The PIE: What are the key industries that will need skilled workers?

GM: Everything from dairy, arable land, horticulture, viticulture and fishing. Our population is about 4.5 million and I was just reading a report the other day for our primary industries group and they are saying that in the next 10 years there will be 100,000 jobs in those primary industries. That’s 100,000 new jobs requiring qualifications. So that’s things like international supply chain managers, food technologists, it’s not digging holes or pulling in a net. The health industry is the same, where are the health professionals coming from? Not just doctors but age-care nursing skills, health management is huge.

So it’s not a general ‘open up the doors, anyone can come in’, but quite specific to those areas.

The PIE: Do you have a problem with making sure you only attract the right sort of students who want to study?

GM:  We do, but I think we’re getting better. There’s two ends to that. One is in market, we’re very targeted in the way that we promote; it doesn’t stop lower quality students coming in but we try to limit it. The other end that has, I think, a better impact is keeping the quality of providers up. We’re pretty keen on identifying those that might be in breach of pastoral care or are just filling up classrooms with those that are using student visas as an easy entry into the workplace.

The PIE: Because you have an agriculture-based economy, is that reflected in the students you’re recruiting?

GM:  Not really, it’s across the board. We get a lot in IT and business, and hospitality and tourism is also big. Agriculture for international students is quite targeted, we get a lot of STEM subject students because we’ve got very highly ranked schools of engineering. So it’s there but it doesn’t dominate.

“If people know us at all it tends to be through tourism and it’s very positive, but we’re not known as a quality education provider”

The PIE: Do you think the biggest challenge to you growing numbers is the fact that Australia is just around the corner? Do students look at New Zealand and Australia and think ‘which one’?

GM: I think if you’re looking at that part of the world you do. I lived in Asia for 12 years and they thought of New Zealand and Australia as Australasia, as almost one grouping, but I think we offer something different.

The PIE: What is the biggest challenge at the moment facing New Zealand as a destination?

GM: The biggest one is lack of awareness. If people know us at all it tends to be through tourism and it’s very positive, but we’re not known as a quality education provider. When I started, just over three years ago, our unprompted awareness numbers were at about 42-48%. In most markets, they’re now at around 70%, compared to the UK, Australia and others who are at 98%.

The PIE: How do you increase awareness?

GM: Part of it is getting name out there through media and the other thing is we go to major events and try to work the massive room as best as we can. And then the third thing is, because we’re not that big, you’ve got to think a bit smarter – we’re working with partners who have got really significant reach like IIE’s major initiative Generation Study Abroad. I think we were the second country to sign up as a country partner when they launched the initiative last year. And we put up 14 scholarships, so they know us, they engage with a lot of people; New Zealand is part of their thinking.

The PIE: Is the US a significant source country for you?

GM:  It is. We believe that New Zealand has a lot to offer US students, though again I think awareness in this market is very low. Where America knows us is probably tourism, maybe the Americas Cup, maybe the All Blacks, Lord of the Rings – probably not as a place to go. We can’t solve the whole problem but we do want to be seen as helping.