0 December 2004
Six Per Cent Of 2003 University Graduates Located Overseas
A relatively low proportion of university graduates report an overseas destination in an annual survey carried out by
the country’s eight universities.
A total of 586 New Zealand graduates out of 10,136 who responded to the 2004 NZ Vice-Chancellors’ Committee University
Graduate Destinations Survey reported being overseas approximately six months after becoming eligible to graduate.
Of the 10,136 New Zealand respondents to the survey, 59 per cent reported full-time employment in this country with a
further 23 per cent continuing full-time study here. The proportion of respondents overseas was six per cent.
Of the 586 graduates reporting an overseas location, 365 were employed full-time, 81 studying full-time and 88 neither
employed nor studying. The balance were either working or studying part-time, some of them reporting both destinations.
The survey, which has been running since 1973, asks university graduates to identify their circumstances in regard to
their location, full-time and part-time employment, full-time and part-time study and whether they are seeking
employment on a full-time or part-time basis.
The 2004 survey questionnaire was mailed to the 28,973 students who became eligible to graduate from a New Zealand
university during 2003. Of those graduates, 3437 were classified as “international” in that they required a permit to
study in this country. The survey response rate for New Zealand graduates was 40 per cent and for international
graduates, 21 per cent.
As far as the overseas destination is concerned, the results of the 2004 survey mirror those from 2003 and indeed have
not changed greatly since 2000. In 2003, 566 New Zealand respondents (six per cent) reported being overseas while the
equivalent number from the 2000 survey was 640 (seven per cent).
Full findings from the 2004 NZVCC University Graduate Destinations Survey will be published in report form shortly, in
both hard copy and downloadable electronic formats.
ENDS