Visa applications fall 7%, with NZ$33,000,000 lost in 4 months: Immigration New Zealand comes under fire!

International education contributes more than NZ$4,000,000,000 to New Zealand’s economy each year. It is the country’s fifth-largest export industry and supports nearly 50,000 jobs.

 

However, in the year to May this year, the number of people applying for a New Zealand student visa for the first time fell 7% compared with the previous year.

 

Documents from Education New Zealand show that New Zealand’s dozen or so polytechnics alone lost around NZ$33,000,000 in just 4 months.

 

People in the education sector say internal restructuring at Immigration New Zealand has delayed student visa processing, taking a heavy toll on the international education industry.

 

Immigration New Zealand currently has a backlog of more than 7500 unprocessed student visa applications. Around 1500 of these students have been waiting for approval since at least February, or even earlier.

 

Among them is a master’s student who submitted his student visa application in December but received his visa only a few days ago. Having missed the start of classes in February, he must now wait until July to begin studying.

 

Many international students have missed their intakes, causing substantial economic losses for New Zealand and tarnishing the reputation of its education sector.

 

So what exactly has Immigration New Zealand’s restructuring involved?

 

Digitalisation and centralisation

 

An education sector source told YIJU that Immigration New Zealand had introduced restructuring called “digitalisation and centralisation” to save money.

 

Digitalisation mainly means moving visa applications online and no longer accepting paper visa documents.

 

As for centralisation, around two years ago Immigration New Zealand upgraded its 4 offices in Mumbai, India; Beijing, China; and Palmerston North and Hamilton, New Zealand, into Super Offices. Other offices handling student visas were gradually closed.

 

The Hong Kong office was among the first to close.

 

The closure of the Shanghai office in the second round had a particularly significant impact.

 

Around 4 years earlier, the Shanghai office had been expanded into one of the largest offices worldwide and was also responsible for processing student visas from Japan and South Korea. Many newly recruited employees had barely settled into their seats before being made redundant.

  

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Restructuring on this scale inevitably creates problems. For example, visa applications from Taiwanese students were assigned to the Mumbai office in India.

 

But ask local staff in India to assess whether a Taiwanese student’s academic and financial credentials pose a risk and whether a visa should be granted, and of course they will be scratching their heads! Indian English also comes with quite a strong accent!

 

A Taiwanese education agent protested: “No matter how good our English is, the Indian staff and I simply cannot understand what each other is saying.”

 

In feedback to New Zealand’s education sector, this person wrote: Honestly, I am reluctant to promote NZ now as I hate that I have to communicate with an Indian Visa Officer and both our mother tongues are not English. No matter how good we can speak English, we just can’t understand each other.

 

 

The Taiwanese agent also strongly demanded that Taiwanese students’ visa applications be transferred to Immigration New Zealand’s Beijing office.

 

 

 

Overseas agents are not the only ones protesting; New Zealand education providers are too. New Zealand universities have been relatively less affected by the restructuring.

 

This is because students seeking higher qualifications and academically demanding courses at universities are generally considered less likely to fail visa requirements. Students at public polytechnics and private tertiary institutions, however, often receive “extra attention” in the visa process, making delays unsurprising.

 

 

Clare Bradley, chief executive of private education provider Aspire2 International, said that while some students who did not receive their visas in time chose to defer until the following term, many others went to Canada or Australia instead.

 

Bradley said that even when students eventually received their student visas, many providers could no longer recover the tuition fees from those who had missed their scheduled start.

 

So how has the much-criticised immigration agency responded?

 

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said Immigration New Zealand was expected to deliver faster processing over the longer term, ensuring better-quality, more consistent decisions.

 

He also said: “The education sector should shift its focus from student numbers to student value. The education system has also been used as a back door for people seeking to immigrate. Immigration New Zealand is therefore tightening its approval procedures.”

 

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway

 

Before Immigration New Zealand’s centralisation reforms, education sector representatives reportedly suggested establishing risk manager positions in affected regions such as Southeast Asia, China and Latin America. These would require little funding but could handle urgent situations.

 

Of course, the proposal was rejected.

 

We must understand: our minister is terribly busy. When granting a residence visa to a Czech drug dealer, he had only 45 minutes to consider it.