Verdict 2017: Why international students in ‘low-level’ courses are being portrayed negatively
The great debate on immigration in New Zealand is getting murkier day by day in this election year. It is reaching a stage where it is increasingly becoming difficult to say if political rhetoric is shaping social attitudes or conversely social attitudes are driving craziness in the political rhetoric.
The recent spat between the New Zealand First and the Green Party leaders about having more “racist approach to immigration,” on Sunday, July 9, around the official launching of the election campaign in Nelson is evidence of election rhetoric getting wackier.
The Indian Weekender’s upcoming election special immigration debate (Friday, July 14), will seek to un-complicate views of all political parties for the benefit of the Kiwi-Indian community.
In this regard, a major question that seems to quietly prevail within the wider Indian community in NZ is the public disdain toward the ‘low-level’ education courses (read level 5-7 courses) and as a consequence disdain toward international students pursuing those courses.
Currently, there is a lot of anxiety within the community about the way international students pursuing low-level courses are being portrayed in the public discourse.
Despite all political parties claiming to abstain from indulging in generating any prejudiced overtones in the immigration debate, evidence suggest that attitudes toward immigration and immigrants take a negative turn every time a political party throws a jibe on the value immigrants bring to this country.
International students are one such constituency of temporary migrants who come to this country following some dreams and promises, which, for many include getting a fair chance at the pathway to residency including others and have received much attention for all the wrong reasons in this election year.
From being held responsible for taking away jobs of the local population, to be held responsible for the apparent lack of regulation within the private tertiary education industry in NZ, to sharing the burden of being held responsible for creating pressure on general infrastructure like housing and public transport, especially in the Auckland, international students are increasingly unwelcome in this country.
In this context, international students arriving in New Zealand to pursue level 5-7 courses are receiving a lot of flak.
Earlier, when the Labour Party had announced its immigration policy calling for cutting 25-30000 international students, then also the target was on students studying these low-level courses.
Against this backdrop, there is a need to look into some specific skills and areas of employment where these courses provide trained workforce in NZ economy.
Low-level courses create skills that matter to NZ
Independent Tertiary Education New Zealand (ITENZ), which represents Private Tertiary Education Institutes that are largely responsible for running low-level courses, denies that these courses and the students trained in these courses are of low-value to the NZ economy.
Speaking to The Indian Weekender, the Chair of ITENZ Christine Clark says, “People undertaking lower level courses in NZ are not the highly qualified taxi drivers that we hear about, these taxi drivers are the ones who have studied at post graduate level and now cannot get employment in a qualification-related field.
“The low-level courses are those courses that NZ and many other countries desperately need graduates from such as the hospitality and healthcare graduates.
“I believe that the original criticism of low-level was incorrect and the politicians meant low quality, and we all agree that low quality is not wanted nor needed by anyone, including the students,” Ms Clark said.
The so-called low-level courses are training chefs, baristas, builders, the horticultural people, farmers and the caregivers. These are the areas where skill shortage in NZ economy is most acute.
Chefs train by completing a full-time Level 3 and 4 NZ Certificate in Cookery.
International students are required to complete a two-year Diploma in Professional Chef Practice.
According to MBIE projections, the number of chefs grew at 1.2 per cent annually between 2006 and 2013, and employment is expected to grow strongly until 2025.
However, there are not enough chefs in NZ to fill these jobs.
Veteran chef Simon Gault has recently criticised how immigration policies are further exacerbating the problem of shortage of chefs in NZ.
Earlier, prominent Indian restaurateur Sidharth and Chand Sahrawat, the owners of modern Indian restaurant Cassia, which was named Auckland's best restaurant by Metro magazine for the second year running and the famous award-winning fine dining restaurant Sidart, have highlighted the problem of acute shortage of trained chefs in NZ.
For this purpose, low-level courses can train and prepare trained workforce, if regulated appropriately.
In this regard, while a Labour immigration policy, which is seeking to drastically cut the numbers of students in low-level courses, would further reduce the number of chefs being trained in NZ.
Whereas, under the current National-led government, only those chefs earning more than $49,000 would be eligible to remain permanently in the country.
According to the Restaurant Association’s 2013 Hospitality Industry Remuneration Survey, incomes range between $27,000 and $55,000.
Sous chefs with average earning more than $49,000 are a relatively experienced position requiring a few years of work experience in the industry.
Similarly, aged care industry is also reeling under the pressure of shortage of skilled workforce – an area that international students trained in low-level courses can easily fill in.
Simon Wallace, the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA), affirms that locally trained international students could be a good source of a skilled workforce for their industry, which is struggling with the skilled workforce shortage.
The NZACA membership represents about 600 rest homes across the country or approximately 35,000 of the 38,000 beds in the sector.
“The sector has estimated that we will need extra 1,000 caregivers each year between now and 2026 to cater for an ageing population and in our case an increase in rest home residents from 38,000 to 52,000.
“While our rest homes do everything they can to employ local New Zealanders, we can’t meet all our labour needs from Kiwis alone. We have to employ migrants.
“Our rest homes also value our migrant workforce, many of whom come from India as they are great workers. We have some internationally qualified Indian nurses who work as caregivers in our sector because their overseas qualifications are not recognised by New Zealand authorities,” Mr Wallace said.
Given such a shortage of skilled workforce, which can be easily trained locally onshore according to the industry requirements from these so-called low-level education courses.
Instead of tapping this available human and financial resource for the betterment of the NZ economy, the current political climate seems to disregard the value these international students bring to the country.
The Indian Weekender is setting up the debate in our next election special issue (Friday, July 14) where all major political parties are invited to comment on this phenomenon of the negative portrayal of international students.
The great debate on immigration in New Zealand is getting murkier day by day in this election year. It is reaching a stage where it is increasingly becoming difficult to say if political rhetoric is shaping social attitudes or conversely social attitudes are driving craziness in the political...
The great debate on immigration in New Zealand is getting murkier day by day in this election year. It is reaching a stage where it is increasingly becoming difficult to say if political rhetoric is shaping social attitudes or conversely social attitudes are driving craziness in the political rhetoric.
The recent spat between the New Zealand First and the Green Party leaders about having more “racist approach to immigration,” on Sunday, July 9, around the official launching of the election campaign in Nelson is evidence of election rhetoric getting wackier.
The Indian Weekender’s upcoming election special immigration debate (Friday, July 14), will seek to un-complicate views of all political parties for the benefit of the Kiwi-Indian community.
In this regard, a major question that seems to quietly prevail within the wider Indian community in NZ is the public disdain toward the ‘low-level’ education courses (read level 5-7 courses) and as a consequence disdain toward international students pursuing those courses.
Currently, there is a lot of anxiety within the community about the way international students pursuing low-level courses are being portrayed in the public discourse.
Despite all political parties claiming to abstain from indulging in generating any prejudiced overtones in the immigration debate, evidence suggest that attitudes toward immigration and immigrants take a negative turn every time a political party throws a jibe on the value immigrants bring to this country.
International students are one such constituency of temporary migrants who come to this country following some dreams and promises, which, for many include getting a fair chance at the pathway to residency including others and have received much attention for all the wrong reasons in this election year.
From being held responsible for taking away jobs of the local population, to be held responsible for the apparent lack of regulation within the private tertiary education industry in NZ, to sharing the burden of being held responsible for creating pressure on general infrastructure like housing and public transport, especially in the Auckland, international students are increasingly unwelcome in this country.
In this context, international students arriving in New Zealand to pursue level 5-7 courses are receiving a lot of flak.
Earlier, when the Labour Party had announced its immigration policy calling for cutting 25-30000 international students, then also the target was on students studying these low-level courses.
Against this backdrop, there is a need to look into some specific skills and areas of employment where these courses provide trained workforce in NZ economy.
Low-level courses create skills that matter to NZ
Independent Tertiary Education New Zealand (ITENZ), which represents Private Tertiary Education Institutes that are largely responsible for running low-level courses, denies that these courses and the students trained in these courses are of low-value to the NZ economy.
Speaking to The Indian Weekender, the Chair of ITENZ Christine Clark says, “People undertaking lower level courses in NZ are not the highly qualified taxi drivers that we hear about, these taxi drivers are the ones who have studied at post graduate level and now cannot get employment in a qualification-related field.
“The low-level courses are those courses that NZ and many other countries desperately need graduates from such as the hospitality and healthcare graduates.
“I believe that the original criticism of low-level was incorrect and the politicians meant low quality, and we all agree that low quality is not wanted nor needed by anyone, including the students,” Ms Clark said.
The so-called low-level courses are training chefs, baristas, builders, the horticultural people, farmers and the caregivers. These are the areas where skill shortage in NZ economy is most acute.
Chefs train by completing a full-time Level 3 and 4 NZ Certificate in Cookery.
International students are required to complete a two-year Diploma in Professional Chef Practice.
According to MBIE projections, the number of chefs grew at 1.2 per cent annually between 2006 and 2013, and employment is expected to grow strongly until 2025.
However, there are not enough chefs in NZ to fill these jobs.
Veteran chef Simon Gault has recently criticised how immigration policies are further exacerbating the problem of shortage of chefs in NZ.
Earlier, prominent Indian restaurateur Sidharth and Chand Sahrawat, the owners of modern Indian restaurant Cassia, which was named Auckland's best restaurant by Metro magazine for the second year running and the famous award-winning fine dining restaurant Sidart, have highlighted the problem of acute shortage of trained chefs in NZ.
For this purpose, low-level courses can train and prepare trained workforce, if regulated appropriately.
In this regard, while a Labour immigration policy, which is seeking to drastically cut the numbers of students in low-level courses, would further reduce the number of chefs being trained in NZ.
Whereas, under the current National-led government, only those chefs earning more than $49,000 would be eligible to remain permanently in the country.
According to the Restaurant Association’s 2013 Hospitality Industry Remuneration Survey, incomes range between $27,000 and $55,000.
Sous chefs with average earning more than $49,000 are a relatively experienced position requiring a few years of work experience in the industry.
Similarly, aged care industry is also reeling under the pressure of shortage of skilled workforce – an area that international students trained in low-level courses can easily fill in.
Simon Wallace, the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA), affirms that locally trained international students could be a good source of a skilled workforce for their industry, which is struggling with the skilled workforce shortage.
The NZACA membership represents about 600 rest homes across the country or approximately 35,000 of the 38,000 beds in the sector.
“The sector has estimated that we will need extra 1,000 caregivers each year between now and 2026 to cater for an ageing population and in our case an increase in rest home residents from 38,000 to 52,000.
“While our rest homes do everything they can to employ local New Zealanders, we can’t meet all our labour needs from Kiwis alone. We have to employ migrants.
“Our rest homes also value our migrant workforce, many of whom come from India as they are great workers. We have some internationally qualified Indian nurses who work as caregivers in our sector because their overseas qualifications are not recognised by New Zealand authorities,” Mr Wallace said.
Given such a shortage of skilled workforce, which can be easily trained locally onshore according to the industry requirements from these so-called low-level education courses.
Instead of tapping this available human and financial resource for the betterment of the NZ economy, the current political climate seems to disregard the value these international students bring to the country.
The Indian Weekender is setting up the debate in our next election special issue (Friday, July 14) where all major political parties are invited to comment on this phenomenon of the negative portrayal of international students.
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