New Zealand: A new PhD destination

Foreign students swell PhD rolls

By REBECCA TODD - The Press Monday, 23 February 2009


International students are swelling the ranks of New Zealand's PhD programmes, with foreign enrolments increasing across the board.

University of Otago director of graduate research services Charles Tustin said doctoral student numbers had risen from 849 in 2005 to 1104 last year.

The rise followed the Government's decision to allow international students to study for PhDs at domestic rates from 2006.

"We don't have a huge natural population, so, with the international side opening up, we have that much more interest," Tustin said.

The university was on track to meet a target of 10 per cent of all enrolled students doing masters degrees or PhDs by 2012, and had introduced a raft of new scholarships.

"Not all departments can take a whole lot more students; they can't just keep growing and growing, but others have scope for growth," he said.

Canterbury University dean of postgraduate studies Steve Weaver said the university had gained 100 PhD students over the past three years.

While Kiwi enrolments remained static, international numbers were increasing and now made up 30 per cent of all doctoral students.

Finding supervisors was a major issue, as some subjects and lecturers were at saturation point, he said.

Popular supervisors could be juggling up to 10 PhD students, but there was room for growth in areas such as education, business and economics and the arts.

"It's a balancing act, finding the facilities to cope with these international students."

Students from countries such as Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh were more demanding of time and resources because they came from such different cultural and religious backgrounds, Weaver said.

The quality of these international students was incredibly high, creating more competition for scholarships.

The university was trying to increase the number of scholarships to address the large enrolments, but the global recession meant returns on university investments were dropping, affecting the availability of scholarship money, he said.

Completion rates were also on the rise, driven by cost pressures and a strong research environment, Weaver said.

In 2006, there were 83 PhD completions, 99 in 2007 and 129 last year.

Professor Matthew Turnbull, of the university's School of Biological Sciences, said he had five doctoral students this year two from the United States, one from Pakistan and two from India.

"Certainly, the change in regulations made it a lot easier to recruit people from overseas," he said.

Lincoln University vice-chancellor for academic services Sheelagh Matear said Lincoln had experienced similar growth in international PhD student numbers, while domestic student numbers had remained stable. The quality of applications meant the university could be more selective about the researchers it accepted, she said.


Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4856246a7694.html