Overseas students

Press, 20 February 1989, Page 12

Overseas students

Sir, —It strikes me that one argument behind the Government’s latest educational “innovation” — the introduction of full fees for overseas students — appears to have gone unstated. This is the idea that “everyone else does it, so why shouldn’t we?” I have difficulty in seeing how this “lemming” mentality is going to help anyone. Until this move by the Government, New Zealand was one of the few countries which did not fleece its overseas students, as happens today in Britain, America, Canada, Europe and Australia. No one should be seriously arguing that foreign students do not contribute greatly to the welfare of the countries where they study — they do contribute, both directly, by the interchange of ideas and, indirectly, by giving us experience of other cultures. Why make that contribution, they may well ask, when we will be fleeced for the pleasure? Why bother coming to New Zealand, when it is no better than anywhere else? Foreign student numbers decreased significantly in Britain following the "ratcheting up” of fees here. — Yours, etc.,

T. A. G. LANGRISH, Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford. February 8, 1989.