Student arrivals to remain limited in Australia and New Zealand

Antipodean borders appear destined to remain mostly closed to international students for months as plans to relax controls fall foul of logistical hurdles and sporadic outbreaks of coronavirus infections.

Australian states have backtracked on proposals to fly in planeloads of students, spooked by community transmissions often involving mere handfuls of cases. And although New Zealand’s plan to jet in 1,000 continuing students appears not to have been derailed by the latest scare – sparked by a single infection in Auckland – aircraft and quarantine capacity could pose a bigger challenge.

“To get into New Zealand, you need to be able to get a flight,” said Universities New Zealand executive director Chris Whelan. “You need to be able to get a space in government-run managed isolation and quarantine. And, obviously, you need to be able to get a visa.

“Those…are major constraints. The fact that we’re clearing an extra 1,000 students is great, but right now it looks like we’re not going to have the extra quarantine capacity at the time we need it.”

While the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has ruled out large-scale international arrivals from beyond Australia and the Pacific for the foreseeable future, her edict does not appear to affect the decision to admit the 1,000 students, which was approved under a “border exception”.

But Mr Whelan pointed out that last October’s resolution to allow in 250 foreign PhD students had taken months to realise. At the time, education minister Chris Hipkins predicted that the students would begin arriving in November, but Mr Whelan said the first of them had shown up in mid-January.

“Getting everything lined up has been very challenging,” he said. “It’s taken a long time to work through visa issues, find a place in managed isolation and get an air ticket.”

New Zealand has in effect ruled out free movement of students across its borders for the rest of this year, with admissions funnelled through government-run quarantine facilities. Similar constraints have hampered student arrivals in Australia, where the federal government has given priority to returning citizens.

Some state governments have tried to circumvent this restriction. But New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian, who had outlined plans to reserve one-third of Sydney’s quarantine places for incoming international students and foreign workers, shelved the idea following local Covid outbreaks.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk proposed quarantining newly arrived foreigners in mining camps in the state’s north, but prime minister Scott Morrison hosed down suggestions that this option might be available to students, indicating that the federal government would provide “overflow capacity” only under the existing rules.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said a large-scale influx of international students would be “incredibly challenging if not impossible” this year, after coronavirus cases were identified among sportspeople jetting in for February’s Australian Open tennis tournament.

Federal education minister Alan Tudge said vaccines could allow for large-scale student arrivals, but only once authorities were convinced of their effectiveness.

“We have to make sure the vaccines work,” Mr Tudge told the ABC. “We have to have some surety…that the student has indeed been vaccinated. We’re really taking it week by week and month by month.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com