Victoria continues to attract Kiwi students

victoria-university-of-wellington

Mon Mar 26 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Victoria continues to attract Kiwi students

Monday, 26 March 2007, 10:19 am
Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington

MEDIA RELEASE

26 March 2007

New Zealand students continue to see Victoria University of Wellington as the destination of choice for tertiary study, with domestic enrolments rising five percent compared to the same time last year.

Enrolments for Trimester 1 2007, show a five percent increase in domestic equivalent full-time students (EFTS) to 12,904, excluding EFTS now sitting with the New Zealand School of Music, a joint venture established with Massey University.

Overall, total EFTS rose two percent to 14,370 compared to the same time in 2006, as the strength of domestic EFTS growth outweighed a drop in international EFTS, which now stand at 1,466, 18 percent lower than at the same time last year.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Pat Walsh said the increase was due to a combination of the University’s recruitment strategies, its reputation for providing high quality teaching and research and Wellington’s reputation as a student-friendly city.

“Victoria continues to provide top quality teaching and research that feed into high quality degree, diploma and certificate programmes that are keenly sought by students. Our recently launched Bachelor of Engineering programme, which offers specialisations in electronic, computer system, network and software engineering has resulted in far more enrolments than expected. We have also had a healthy increase in enrolments in our teacher education programmes.

“Victoria also continues to undertake an active recruitment programme throughout New Zealand. Many of the new enrolments are first-year students and increasing numbers are from areas outside Victoria’s traditional catchment of the lower North Island and upper South Island. We continue to receive far more applications from prospective students wanting to live in our halls of residence than we can actually accommodate.

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“Wellington is also increasingly being seen by students as a great place to live and study and reflects our strong partnership with the Wellington City Council. The exciting, vibrant cultural and social life of the city provides our students with a much-needed change in pace from their studies.”

Professor Walsh said the decline in international students was not unexpected and was affecting the whole tertiary sector.

“The drop we have experienced has been ameliorated by the work of our award-winning team in Victoria International. We continue to diversify our international student markets, with students coming from more than 70 countries and we are attracting increasing numbers of postgraduate international students, some of whom have been attracted by the Government’s international PhD funding policy. Almost all of our reduction has occurred in China but for some time we have worked to reduce our exposure to this market.”

ENDS

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