25 Nov 2013

South Korea leads slump in foreign students

5:14 pm on 25 November 2013

The number of foreign students in New Zealand is falling for the second year in a row , driven by a big drop in enrolment numbers among South Koreans.

Official figures published on Monday show there were 84,000 international students here between January and the end of August, nearly 2500 fewer than at the same time last year.

The 3% fall is concentrated in English language schools and private tertiary institutions, which had 3500 fewer foreign students.

That more than outweighed growth of about 1200 enrolments in universities and polytechnics and slight growth at schools.

The figures show enrolments from China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Brazil all fell.

But the decrease in the student intake from South Korea was the biggest, down 1400, due to factors including poor economic conditions in that country and a drive to educate more young people locally.