NEW ZEALAND
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Government mulls foreign student return under quarantine

The New Zealand government is considering allowing foreign students into the country before other visitors but only under strict quarantine conditions. Minister of Education Chris Hipkins said he would ask universities and other education providers to develop a two-week quarantine system so the valuable international education industry could restart.

New Zealand’s border has been closed to all but New Zealand citizens since 20 March.

Hipkins said it was unlikely a quarantine system would be in place in time for universities’ second semester intake in July, but it could be working before they start their academic year in March.

A think tank, the New Zealand Initiative, said the country’s good management of the COVID-19 outbreak – it has all but eliminated the virus after a seven-week lockdown – could make it more attractive to foreign students.

International education is one of New Zealand’s most important industries, attracting more than 100,000 students a year and worth more than NZ$5 billion (US$3 billion) to the economy.

Immigration New Zealand figures show 51,580 foreign students are in the country, and schools, universities, polytechnics and private tertiary institutions are not expecting any more to arrive this year.

Universities said they pitched a quarantine system to the government in early March when travel restrictions on certain countries were preventing thousands of Chinese students from travelling to New Zealand.

However, Hipkins said that proposal was for voluntary isolation rather than strict quarantine.

Government quarantine facilities

The vice-chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington, Grant Guilford, said universities would probably look to use the government’s existing quarantine facilities – essentially campervans and caravans in a location near Auckland – rather than develop their own.

Guilford said allowing foreign students into New Zealand after a two-week quarantine would not pose any health risk to the public.

He said the pandemic would cost New Zealand’s universities about NZ$400 million (US$240 million) this year, mostly because of the loss of foreign students’ fees.

He told a parliamentary committee scrutinising the government’s response to the pandemic that next year could be even worse.

Three years’ hardship expected

“We’re envisaging three years of great hardship and then maybe a slow return over about a decade to the numbers we’ve currently got in New Zealand,” he said.

The acting vice-chancellor of Lincoln University, Bruce McKenzie, told RNZ foreign students would have accounted for nearly half the students at his institution this year, but the pandemic had reduced numbers.

He said New Zealand would be well placed to attract students once border restrictions were lifted.

“New Zealand is viewed as perhaps the safest country in the world to come to right now,” he said.

McKenzie said New Zealand might be able to form a “bubble” allowing international travel with other countries with few COVID-19 cases such as Australia, South Korea and China.

The chief economist at the New Zealand Initiative, Dr Eric Crampton, urged the government to move quickly to let international students back into the country.

“The COVID-19 crisis gives New Zealand’s tertiary sector a real opportunity to become more desirable as a destination for foreign students,” Crampton said.

He said New Zealand’s universities provided world-class undergraduate education, but they were not as prestigious as some in the United States and United Kingdom.

“But after the COVID-19 crisis, New Zealand’s overall safety compared to them, makes our universities a much more attractive option. Universities risk losing all international revenue if the border is not reopened to international students.”