Our Views - Export Education

Most of our members have some international students, recognising the value that they have in increasing the scale of our operations and enriching the learning environment. Pacific International Hotel Management School enrols around half of its students from overseas, while most others have under a tenth of their students from offshore.

Besides enrolling students from offshore, members also have academic and student exchanges with overseas institutions. Pacific International Hotel Management School is part of an international network of hotel schools, Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design has regular academic exchanges with American institutions and Media Design School has started a student exchange with a German institute.

We work with government agencies directly and through Education New Zealand, an umbrella body for the export education sector. Our main aims are to ensure that New Zealand's immigration policy is internationally competitive and well implemented, and that the government-established export education levy is set and spent by the industry, not the Minister of Education. While there is some generic promotion of New Zealand education sponsored through the government and the levy, most of our members have specific markets and pursue their own initiatives.