Speech to Office of Ethnic Affairs EthnicA Conference

Speech to Office of Ethnic Affairs EthnicA Conference by Dr Andrew Butcher, April 2011

Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to chair this session and I’m looking forward to hearing from the students on this panel in a few moments time, as I’m sure you all are.

The organisers of this panel have asked me to spend a few moments to discuss the emerging trends and issues in research on international students in the context of students transitioning to residency in New Zealand.

Before I do that, however, I would like to convey my sympathies – and the sympathies of all of us at the Asia New Zealand Foundation – to those who have lost friends and loved ones in the Christchurch and Japan earthquakes. Both of these awful events will clearly have an impact on international students in New Zealand. We know that, tragically, a significant number of Asian students in Christchurch were among the fatalities and that other Asian students chose to return to their home countries, too afraid to stay in Christchurch.

The unpredictable nature of these disasters provides a segue of sorts into the first of what I see as emerging issues for research and that is the relationship between international students and foreign relations. While it is true that an increasing number of international students in New Zealand remain and become permanent residents, it is also true that a greater number return to their countries of origin. It is axiomatic that a student who has had a rewarding, fulfilling and beneficial student experience in New Zealand will have good-will toward New Zealand now and in the future.

The reverse is also true. A poor experience can lead to ill-will. Nothing about that will surprise you. But what is surprising – to me at least – is that we often neglect our returned students, with the exception of the occasional alumni function in a large Asian city. And we neglect them at our peril. Some of these students will go onto be the great and the good in politics, commerce and education and some of those will engage with New Zealand in their successful careers. Surely, it’s in our interests to cultivate the best students both while they’re here and when they go back home?

It’s equally important to cultivate those students that stay here. In a few days time Asia:NZ is releasing a report on Asian business graduates in New Zealand. It is the second of three reports, based on a three-year study which will finish this year. We commissioned this study because we were interested in what happened to Asian students who came to New Zealand to study business and because when we first asked the question no-one could give us the answer. The first and second reports are sobering reading.

The students in this research rely heavily on social networking and work experience to gain their entree into the New Zealand labour market. When those two things work, they work well. But without good networks and relevant work experience, students quickly become lonely and disillusioned. But there’s more to it too. This research shows us that some of these students don’t think that their degrees sufficiently equip them for the global marketplace that they want to enter, whether in New Zealand or overseas.

The research also shows us that the discrimination that we know is familiar to many migrants as they try and navigate the labour market is also a familiar experience for international students, even those educated in New Zealand and with permanent residency. These students also report frustrations with the bureaucracy, in particular that what they might see as relevant job experience the Immigration Department do not.

Social networking itself is an important area of emerging research. When I first started researching in this field ten years ago there wasn’t – believe it or not – Facebook or Twitter or Skype as tools for students to connect with each other and their friends and family around the world. There was some scholarly literature at the time on what was called computer-mediated communities and this has become even more relevant now.

But significant and useful social networking for students doesn’t just take place online, but can be just as beneficial – or even more beneficial – when it’s with home-stay providers, employers, co-nationals, students from cultures other than their own, academic faculty and those in their churches or sports clubs. We know from previous research that international students found their best support – their best pastoral care, if you like – came from the informal networks they were part of, rather than from the formal institutions they were enrolled in. The role of those informal networks remains important.

Networking plays another role for students and that is as cultural bridge-builders. One of the reasons Asia:NZ commissioned the research on Asia business graduates was because we were hearing from employers that they wanted to access people who were cross-culturally aware. It doesn’t necessarily follow that an international student in New Zealand is cross-culturally aware, but it is probably true to say that there’s a higher chance that they would be more cross-culturally aware than a Kiwi student.

We know from this research that Asian students are keen to take that bridge-building role in developing strong and long-lasting relationships between Asians and New Zealanders across a range of contexts.
In summary, we need to think of international students in New Zealand as a long-term resource worth cultivating, whether they remain in New Zealand or go elsewhere. Much of our research has tended to focus on their student experience, or discrimination, or their interactions with Kiwi students – and those are all good, laudable avenues of research.But they don’t always move the conversation forward.

We live in a rapidly changing, sometimes unpredictable, but increasingly Asia-centric world. New Zealand’s place in the world means that its place is also in Asia. We need to think about more than educating Asian students and instead ask how these students here, or as returnees, can play their part in preparing New Zealand for a future with Asia.