There has been an increase of 67 per cent in the number of Indian students enrolling in universities in New Zealand in the last financial year, High Commissioner of New Zealand to India, Grahame Morton said here today.
"New Zealand has emerged as a new destination for Indian students who want to study abroad and over 20,000 Indians studied at New Zealand campuses in 2014, an increase of 67 per cent than the earlier year" Morton said.
"New Zealand provides quality education in a safe and welcoming environment with a range of lifestyle and recreation options for students. The focus of our education system on excellence, creativity and innovation and nurturing work-ready graduates in something that Indian families value," he added.
Citing India as one of their priority target for International students, Ziena Jalil, Education New Zealand (ENZ) Regional Director, South and South-East Asia said "India is one of our priority markets for international students and over the past few years, we have engaged with Indian students through variety of innovative campaigns and look forward to strengthen this relationship forward."
New Zealand offers various scholarship programs to provide Indian students with an opportunity to have various options open, said Jalil.
"There are various scholarship programs available like PM's Sports Scholarship, PM's scholarship for Asia and Christ Church Scholarship, their amount may differ from course to course," she added.
Talking about the popular courses among Indian students studying in New Zealand, Jalil said "Management and Accounting are the most popular courses among Indian students there followed by IT and Engineering, Food technology, agricultural studies, aviation training and business studies."
New Zealand has come up with some easy visa facilities for students by introducing online immigration so that it is no longer required to depend on physical offices, paper applications and manual processing, said Nathnael Mackay, Manager Immigration of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, New Zealand.
"We also provide e-medical facility that makes it possible for the physicians to submit the health certificates of the visa applicants online that saves time and efforts," he said.
Student visa holder are also provided with 20 hours work permit during their term and full term work permit during holidays, in fact the partners of post-grad students are qualified to apply for the visa to join onshore, added Mackay.
Education New Zealand (ENZ), a government agency for International business is also coming up with its multi-city education fairs series in India.
The fairs will be held on August 22, 23 and 29 in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi respectively to create awareness among Indian Students and parents about the Education opportunities for Indians in New Zealand.
