Labour’s Immigration Policy Needs to Backed by Promise to Fund Public Tertiary Institutions Properly
Today the Labour Party announced a new immigration policy, including proposals to stop issuing student visas to people wanting to study certain courses and to restrict the availability of post-study work visas.
Commenting on the announcement, Sandra Grey, national president of the Tertiary Education Union, said:
“Labour will need to tread very carefully implementing its policy to limit immigration by reforming the student visa system. Over the last nine years, National has changed the tertiary education sector and cut funds by so much that many public institutions now depend on attracting increasing numbers of international students to maintain financial viability.
“If this policy achieves its stated aim of limiting student and post-study work visas, then Labour needs to make sure it does not have a knock-on effect on the public institutions that National has made reliant on fees from international students. It can do this by committing now to properly funding our public tertiary education institutions, rather than making them vulnerable to the international market as National has done.”
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