Radio NZ reports–

Immigration New Zealand was dealing with a spike in the number of fraudulent applications from potential students from India.

It said the number of student visa applications from India almost tripled last year to about 20,000 but 38 percent were refused, compared with just four percent for the other main market, China.

12,000 temporary immigrants from India, and probably more from China and as many again from a variety of other places will put even more pressure on housing and rents.

Assistant general manager for visa services at Immigration New Zealand Peter Elms said most of those turned down had poor English and were not really coming here to study.

“The people who don’t make the policy grade, if you like, are those people who are coming to study in New Zealand for the lower level courses, and generally speaking they are declined because we doubt they’re bona fides… We doubt that their true reason for coming to New Zealand is to study at the level they say they intend to study at.”

Education New Zealand is the Government body charged with promoting New Zealand as an education destination and increasing the the sector’s value from $2.8 billion a year to $5 billion.

I guess if there’s a $5 billion contribution to NZ’s economy its great, but I wish I knew for certain that we are talking about an overall net benefit here, not only economically but socially. I have my doubts.

Chief executive Grant McPherson said New Zealand was not being targeted because it was regarded as a soft touch.

“If you look around the world, we’re not the only ones that have had such a massive increase in the number of Indian students that are coming through.”

I spent a lot of time working in the Middle East where Indian immigration is pretty prolific. Indian immigrants on work visas are very strictly controlled by the authorities and not without reason. I doubt very much they would face the same degree of control in NZ. I think they should.