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WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND NEW ZEALAND has relaxed its immigration laws to allow more Asian students to enroll at its higher-education institutions.
While the changes are relatively few, they include raising the annual quota of Chinese students from 1,000 to 4,000 and are seen as significant in a country where some politicians in recent years have stigmatized Asian students-especially those from China-as threats to the cultural order of this largely Anglo-Saxon nation.
The new policy comes at a time when universities here are under pressure to match the success of their counterparts in Australia in recruiting fee-paying foreign students. While New Zealand's population is one-quarter the size of its neighbor's, it attracts fewer than 10 per cent of the number of foreign students that Australia does.
A recent study, commissioned by New Zealand's Ministry of Education, found "little evidence" of commitment among the country's seven universities to develop what it called an "international dimension" in their recruitment policies. Foreign students account for just 4.9 per cent of New Zealand's student population, compared with 9.6 per cent in Australia.
The study also found that New Zealand had...