World is modern pupils' oyster

More students are travelling overseas in their school holidays. College Herald reporter HANNE NIELSEN explains


Friday morning, the last day of term. "Where are you going these holidays?" the teacher asks her class.

Five-year-old Jimmy puts up his hand. "I'm going to Bali, Miss."

His friend Serena is going to Australia and their classmate Michelle has just left to visit her family back in China.

Are they unique, these jet-setting children for whom flying is a regular mode of transport about which they don't think twice? Not at all. They are part of the international generation, for whom aeroplanes are as familiar as busses and travelling the world is part of everyday life.

As airfares become more affordable, overseas holidays are becoming a reality for thousands of New Zealanders. According to Statistics New Zealand, 1,500,856 New Zealand residents made short-term departures overseas in the year ended May 2004, with Australia, Fiji, Britain, the United States and China the most popular destinations.

This was a 16.1 per cent increase on the previous year and the numbers don't look to be decreasing.

Another reason for the increase in travel is that people have family to visit overseas. With New Zealand such a multicultural place, thousands of first and second-generation New Zealanders return to visit their homelands every year.

Wherever their relatives live - China, Australia, Sri Lanka or Peru - people are making the most of the fact that their families are only a plane trip away.

Even if their relatives live in the same city, people are taking advantage of lower airfares to explore the world along with their children. In this way the holidays are a great learning experience, that can be even more full-on than life during term time.

But term time is not exempt from the rise in international travel, with overseas school trips becoming more common. The Japanese class visiting Japan, a music trip to play in the Sydney Opera House or an art history tour around Italy are wonderful experiences for students at schools that can raise the money.

The increase in international travel has transformed the way we think about school trips and holidays. Where once the holiday would have meant two weeks of rest at home or by the beach, now it can just as easily mean touring Australia's Gold Coast.

* Hanne Nielsen is a Year 11 student at Epsom Girls Grammar School in Auckland. The College Herald returns on August 10.