New Zealand gov't bids to draw foreign students back to earthquake-stricken Christchurch
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E-mail Xinhua, September 5, 2012
New Zealand gov't bids to draw foreign students back to earthquake-stricken Christchurch
WELLINGTON, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government Wednesday launched a marketing initiative to encourage overseas students to return to the earthquake-battered city of Christchurch.
Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce said that while overseas student numbers in the surrounding Canterbury region had understandably declined following the earthquakes, Canterbury was still the country's second most popular destination for foreign students and had a strong international reputation for providing high quality education.
"It has been a tough time for all providers of international education in Christchurch following the earthquakes with a 37 percent drop in numbers in 2011," Joyce said in a public speech at the launch of the initiative.
The government had been working to assist international student levels in Canterbury in recovering to pre-quake levels by providing an extra 5 million NZ dollars (3.96 million U.S. dollars) dedicated to marketing Christchurch.
The Christchurch Educated marketing initiative would send the message globally that Christchurch was safe and friendly, that education providers were back on their feet, and that international students were welcome in the community, he said.
"The government has set an ambitious goal to double the economic value of New Zealand's international education sector to 5 billion NZ dollars by 2025. Having more overseas students studying in Christchurch's schools, universities, polytechs and private training establishments is a key part of achieving that goal," Joyce said.
University of Canterbury (UC) Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr said at the launch that as New Zealand's second largest education area, the city was a safe destination for students.
"Today we have 13,000 students, 1,900 staff and 600 courses for this semester and applications to our halls of residence for 2013 are clearly up by over 30 percent on the last year," he said in a statement released by the university.
UC was leading post-earthquake research with 170 projects looking into a wide range of subjects.
More than a third of the 185 people killed in the 6.3-magnitude earthquake on Feb. 22 last year were foreign students who had come to study in New Zealand's "garden city."
Sixty-four Asian students died when the building housing the King's Education language school collapsed and burned.
Seventeen students from Chinese mainland, 28 from Japan, two from the Republic of Korea, 10 from the Philippines, one from Taiwan and six from Thailand were incinerated or crushed in the city center building that housed the school. Enditem
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