Mean hosts jeopardise a billion-dollar industry

By GEOFF CUMMING

Hubbub fills the fourth floor of a downtown Auckland office tower. Behind double doors, about 70 students are talking at once. The language is English but the faces are mainly Asian - Chinese, Korean, Japanese - with a sprinkling of South Americans and Europeans.

It is Monday morning in the common room at the Auckland English Academy and the students are interviewing each other about their weekend. They put the questions slowly. "Did-you-see-Star-Wars-II?" A lot of the students obviously did. "Do you know what 'kia ora' means?" Their responses vary.

Later in small classrooms, the students are attentive but they laugh a lot, mostly at each other's mistakes - and they make plenty during an exercise on idioms.

Scenes like this are replicated increasingly all over the country as the number of foreign fee-paying students at our schools, universities and language schools has doubled to an estimated 65,000 in just two years.

Many enrol in language schools to do an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) course, allowing them to go on to university or polytechnic.

Some will go home when they feel their conversational English is good enough to use in international business. Others want an overseas English language qualification as an adjunct to university studies at home, or for a career in travel.

Most choose New Zealand after talking to teachers, friends who have been here or education agents who recruit overseas for our institutions.

The industry is mostly concentrated in downtown Auckland, where up to 15,000 foreign students are changing the face of the inner city.

When classes are out, Queen St can resemble Hong Kong. Shops are selling green tea- flavoured icecream, Asian students are propping up rents in the low-to-mid-price apartment market, and it's standing room only on buses ferrying students to and from suburban flats and homestays, despite extra services.

But the industry's influence has spread well beyond the city. In rural backwaters and tourist spots like Kerikeri, Whitianga, Whangamata and Mt Maunganui, people are paying off their mortgages by offering homestays to students attending language schools.

More than 820 institutions ranging from universities to small language schools linked to hairdressing schools and adventure-tour operations now offer courses to fee-paying overseas students.

New language schools are opening almost weekly. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority had registered 79 language schools on May 1 while 33 were seeking registration. Dozens more offer courses of less than 12 weeks' duration, which don't need NZQA approval.

Foreign students are flocking here because New Zealand is seen as safe and a good place to learn - and at around $30,000 a year in tuition, accommodation and living expenses, our exchange rate means we offer the cheapest education in the world.

This happy combination means the industry's contribution to gross domestic product has doubled in two years, to $1.14 billion, and Education NZ, responsible for developing "export education" internationally, says it could grow another three or four times.

Such is the industry's importance, the ripple effects of any downturn would spread beyond the education sector to retailing, the rental property market and thousands of homestay hosts.

But with the industry's meteoric rise comes the concern that unless we ensure fee-paying foreign students get a good deal, the export education bubble could burst.

A look at feedback forms completed by foreign students at the Auckland University of Technology reveals some typical student concerns. Although most are happy with their course and teachers, there are complaints about teachers who "don't like Asians", who "tease", or "teach us like children".

Class sizes may be too big and have "too many from the same country". Disruptive classmates upset some, while others find the course content too hard or complain about an emphasis on reading and writing ahead of conversational English.

Industry participants have allied concerns that the fundamentals are not in place to sustain its growth.

For instance, a lack of qualified teachers of English as a second language is raising doubts about teaching standards, prompting some institutions to bring in teachers from overseas.

A severe shortage of homestay families is exacerbated by Inland Revenue moves to tax families hosting more than one student.

And the quality of agents who represent our institutions varies, according to Education NZ chief executive Lester Taylor. Students are sometimes misled about what they are getting and agents occasionally "double dip" - charging a fee on top of their commission.

Students come here from 116 countries, but 85 per cent are from Asia and half come from just three countries - China, Korea and Japan. China has sprung from nowhere to be our leading market, after allowing undergraduates to study overseas in 1998. New Zealand has gradually eased entry restrictions since.

Taylor says the industry is trying to broaden its base. "If a crash came in any of those markets it would have an immediate effect on New Zealand."

Strong growth potential is seen in Scandinavia, Europe, the Middle East and South America, as well as India, Vietnam and other Asian countries.

Apart from worries about the exchange rate and a repeat dose of the Asian flu, there are other reasons to diversify, says Taylor.

"Students come here for an international experience, not to live in a Mandarin-speaking suburb," he says. "It's important that they mix with a range of people from other countries."

Even Asian students are saying there are too many Asians in Auckland. "I imagined a lot of foreign people all speaking different languages," says Carol, a 21-year-old from Shunde, southern China. "When I came here all I can see is Chinese. Everyday I say 'nihao', not 'hello'."

Yu Xin Wu, 21, from Canton, China says: "It feels like being in an Asian city. It's good for us to overcome the culture shock but not good to learn English."

Students complain of too few opportunities to meet New Zealanders. Tao Chen, from Nanjing, China, says Asian cultures can be reticent at first and "not very good at communicating". They don't agree that locals are unfriendly. They are too busy studying, says one, to mocking laughter from his classmates.

Of immediate concern is a flurry of bad publicity suggesting that foreign students may not be getting what they expect from their time in New Zealand.

In February, research by masters student Terri McFedries into the experiences of foreign students in Christchurch secondary schools uncovered problems of isolation, neglect, gambling, drug-taking and alleged extortion.

In April, prominent GP Pippa MacKay called on institutes to offer sex education to slow the high pregnancy and abortion rate among Asian students who found the "sexual culture" somewhat different in New Zealand.

Last month, the country's reputation was tarnished in Thailand by reports of the experiences of 14 students brought here on a language tour. Aged between 11 and 22, they were crammed into a state house in Mangere and received no tuition. Some of the younger boys alleged sexual abuse by the Thai agent who escorted them.

Industry representatives say such incidents are isolated and could happen anywhere, but they acknowledge the need to address these emerging issues, saying export education cannot rely on price alone to keep attracting students.

Taylor says the industry's growth is wonderful but "almost too big. We can't sustain the level of growth we've had without some rethinking about the services we provide for students who come here."

Terri McFedries' research exposed a lack of support and supervision for secondary students in homestays and a lack of interaction with locals. She found students with gambling debts were forming triads and demanding protection money from younger Asians.

One student, who died in a car crash, had spent $75,000 of his parents' money in a year. When his parents came to collect his ashes, the school told them he had been involved in an Asian gang and gambled in the casino.

"Without supervision and with so much spending power, these Asian students become an extravagant new subculture in our society," McFedries said.

The biggest source of friction is homestays, the first taste of New Zealand for most overseas students. Homestays are promoted as an integral part of "international education", allowing students to practise their English with host families while experiencing New Zealand customs and culture. Hosts charge between $150 and $200 a week and often take two or three students at a time.

But often a culture clash develops. Many students cannot adapt to the food - particularly toast for breakfast - and the "meat, tomato sauce and potatoes" mains. They complain about lack of conversation, "mean" hosts who limit shower time and heater use and those who hover outside the bathroom in the mornings. Many Asian students object to having pets in the house.

In Auckland's far-flung suburbs, students leave homestays because of infrequent and unreliable bus services and the travel time to their school or the city library.

They go flatting with people they meet on their course, socialise together and talk in their native language. Some live in apartments in the inner city, others buy fast cars and spend nights in the casino.

AUT homestay co-ordinator Theresa Finlayson says settling in is a huge upheaval for students from Asia's teeming metropolises.

"They don't know much about our cuisine. Many leave within four or five weeks because they want to be with friends and cook their own food in an apartment close to the city. I can understand that, but they miss out on speaking English and living with their homestay family."

Sue Blincoe of Kiwi Homestay Consultants acknowledges the problems, but says the homestay sector is becoming more professional. Her agency gets up to 10 inquiries a day from people wanting to be hosts but they are now subject to thorough vetting and must satisfy contracting institutions that they will offer more than just board and lodging.

Secondary schools increasingly insist that students have a guardian independent of their host to help them adjust.

Blincoe says some students go off the rails because their parents send them too much money.

"It's just a case of too much freedom. It comes back to the orientation of the student before they come here. They should be told, 'This is what New Zealand is like, this is the food, this is what you can expect'."

Cheryl Megchelse, international student support officer at Massey University Albany, says foreign students ride an emotional roller coaster, from the initial excitement of being in a new place to the point where they must deal with the culture shock.

"In Asian cultures, you have to be introduced into a group. You enter into a friendship cautiously, but once you've made a friend there's an obligation and an expectation on that friendship. They trust you probably more slowly than we would."

Researcher Andrew Butcher says Asian students shop, live their lives and socialise in our communities, so it's a concern if they don't mix.

Butcher was part of a team that interviewed overseas students after they returned home about their experiences here.

"Those who had mixed with New Zealanders said that was the best thing they did. They found New Zealanders to be really hospitable," he says. "Those who didn't said it was their biggest regret."

Butcher says culture shock is one obstacle to interaction "but, as Kiwis, maybe we need to get out and be a bit more proactive".

Most institutions accept that they could do more to help foreign students mix. The long-established Dominion English School organises social activities and gives students a chance to see the country.

"Students can come here and go horse trekking and river rafting and get drunk with rugby players - which is very popular with Japanese girls for some reason," says managing director John Langdon.

A report for the Ministry of Education suggests institutions could do more to foster interaction. The report, on the impacts of foreign students, lists peer-pairing, co-operative learning in classrooms and hostel programmes as ways to help to "maximise the benefits of internationalism".

In response to concerns about student well-being, the ministry has introduced a new code of practice which lays down minimum standards for institutions and homestay providers.

The code binds all institutions and language schools offering courses to overseas students. They must provide orientation programmes and take responsibility for students' welfare by offering social and psychological support, counselling and grievance procedures.

Homestay providers must be thoroughly assessed - including a police computer check - and trained about cultural and religious differences. The code includes procedures for reporting abuse and neglect.

If students can't resolve complaints with their school or institute, they can take them to the ministry's international appeal authority.

McFedries is not convinced the code will make a difference as she says it is hard for foreign students to take on institutions. She believes an independent agency, such as an international student centre, is needed in each city to resolve conflicts.

The Government's other big push to raise industry standards is to introduce a compulsory levy, set at 1 per cent of tuition fees. Citing concerns about quality and financial risks among some providers, it says poorly managed growth could damage New Zealand's reputation. The $3 million levy would be used by Education NZ for quality improvements and promotion.

But institutions doubt that the money will be ploughed back into the industry and want Education NZ membership to remain voluntary.

Barbara Takase, of the Association of Private Providers of English Language, says the levy will slice into narrow profit margins and put some out of business.

Takase says the industry is "tightening up" of its own accord. Individual schools run professional development courses for teachers, and monitor standards. Members of the Federation of English Language Schools have engaged an independent auditing company and some are seeking ISO 9000 quality accreditation. Even schools offering short-term courses must now go through NZQA certification.

The Government's increasing involvement in the industry worries stalwarts like Langdon. "We are adults aren't we? If someone wants to come to New Zealand and buy a shoddy product, it's a free country. I presume we're not saying everything has to be registered for tourists."

Taylor acknowledges there is a strong degree of self-regulation in the industry. "By far most people are doing a good job in the interests of everyone. They realise that if they stuff it up they'll go broke."

Back at the Auckland English Academy the students take turns at reading aloud the Herald article about the Thai language tour scam. Its frontpage headline, "Students' Nightmare in New Zealand", is greeted with knowing laughter. These students are enjoying their international education - with each other.