Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Enrolment figures show international student numbers all but recovered at universities last year.
However, schools and polytechnics had about half as many foreign enrolments as before the pandemic.
Education New Zealand said there were 69,135 enrolments last year, up from 2022's low of 41,360.
However, the figure was well below the nearly 116,000 enrolments in 2019, before the pandemic began.
Education New Zealand said one student might enrol more than once so the actual number of students might be lower than the number of enrolments.
It said universities had 29,065 enrolments last year, about 4800 fewer than in 2019 but similar to enrolment totals in 2017 and 2018.
China provided a third of last year's enrolments, India 17 percent and Japan 10 percent.
However, at universities 50 percent of foreign students last year were Chinese, one of the highest percentages on record.
Te Pukenga had 8620 international enrolments, about half its pre-pandemic figure of 16640. The total included 2135 Chinese students and 3380 from India
Schools had 14,125 enrolments compared to 23,577 in 2019 while private tertiary institutions had 7954 enrolments, down from 13708 in 2019.
English language schools had 9569 enrolments which was equivalent to a third of the sector's pre-pandemic 2019 total of 28,473 enrolments.
However, Education New Zealand said English language schools' total represented a 511 percent increase over their 2022 total of 1565.
