By JO-MARIE BROWN and REBECCA WALSH
Auckland's international students are more valuable than realised, a study showing they contribute $198 million a year to the local economy.
Research paid for by the Asia 2000 Foundation on how much international students spend while living in New Zealand, shows that the city's 11,595 students pay $198 million in fees, accommodation, food, transport, books, appliances and other goods and services while studying.
Overall, the 29,051 international students studying in New Zealand contribute $545 million to the national economy a year - a figure which some believe would surprise the public.
Peter Laurenson, project manager for the International Education Marketing Network, which encouraged students to study in New Zealand, said people did not realise what a growth area education had become.
"It's not a message that the education industry has spent any time getting across to the public, and international students are still a small proportion of student numbers as a whole so they don't have a high profile," Mr Laurenson said.
Around 80 per cent of international students came from Asia and Mr Laurenson said the potential for further growth was huge.
The network wanted to double the number of international students studying in New Zealand within five years, which would generate $1 billion in foreign exchange earnings - and thousands more jobs, Mr Laurenson said.
The international education sector already accounted for just over 10,000 fulltime equivalent jobs nationally. That included teachers and those involved in administration, accommodation (such as home-stays) and product and service providers.
Mr Laurenson said some of the $3.5 million the Government had allocated for the project included money for the Ministry of Education to assess the ability of the sector to cater for international students without compromising the education of New Zealand students.
Dr Clint Laurent, director of Asian Demographics, said there were opportunities for NZ tertiary institutions to tap into the Asian market but they needed to be proactive. In affluent parts of Asia, such as Taiwan, there was pressure on "white collar" workers to lift their skills.
The cheap dollar meant a NZ qualification was an affordable and credible option, if the training was done in short bursts or through the internet.
At the same time, the school-age population in less-well-off Asian countries, such as China, Thailand and Malaysia, was expected to grow more than 10 per cent over the next 20 years. Another potential market was the 60 year-plus bracket, who were often well educated and looking for new challenges to fill their time.
"Americans go on cruises to study Greek architecture," he said. "A Japanese guy might look to come and play some golf and do some study."
Foreign students boost to economy
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