Another private school delisted

A second private international school has been deregistered by the Qualifications Authority in just over a month.

There are claims some private international schools forewarn pupils of exam questions, have lax attendance requirements, and enrol pupils whose English is so bad they could not feasibly complete courses.

Insiders say the situation threatens New Zealand's $1.5 billion export-education industry's reputation.

The authority will reveal today it has deregistered the second private training establishment since December. It is the seventh deregistered for non-compliance in two years.

The authority said Auckland's City Language Academy Ltd had advertised that it offered authority-approved courses, which it was not accredited to do. It taught English language and catered to Chinese pupils; 17 were enrolled when it was deregistered last week.

Another school, the Auckland-based NZ Academy of Studies, was deregistered by the authority last month after a sting by television programme Illegal NZ caught it allegedly selling an unearned business diploma to an actor.

A phone number for the NZ Academy of Studies had been disconnected yesterday and the City Language Academy had no listed number.

NZQA quality assurance deputy chief executive Tim Fowler said the export-education industry, worth $1.5 billion to New Zealand annually, relied on its good reputation to attract international pupils. New Zealand had about 700 private training establishments.

Barry Radford – former general manager of GCM SinoEd NZ, which runs three New Zealand schools – said there were still several below-standard schools, damaging New Zealand's reputation abroad. He was aware of international pupils who had enrolled in reputable private schools to obtain entry to New Zealand.

But they then switched to cheaper, less-reputable ones which did not worry about attendance, and where teachers gave pupils advance warning about exam questions.

"People overseas are stopping dealing with New Zealand," Mr Radford said.

Richard Goodall, president of AIS St Helens, one of the country's biggest private providers, applauded the deregistering of the two schools, saying it would enhance New Zealand's reputation abroad. But he warned of potential "short-term" impacts on the international pupil market.

"I think what we are seeing is a shake-up and shake-out of the market."

He was aware of about five private schools that had been "unduly flexible" over attendance and examination standards during the past five years. Some pupils had been allowed entry to courses despite their English being insufficient to understand the lessons.

AIS staff had regularly notified the authority of their concerns and officials should have taken action sooner, Mr Goodall said.

An authority spokeswoman said any evidence-based claims would be investigated.

Education New Zealand spokeswoman Michelle Waitzman said about three years ago a school went bankrupt, leaving its Chinese pupils out of pocket. The news was "all over the Chinese press", resulting in a drop in the number of Chinese pupils coming to New Zealand, and the closure of some other private international schools.

China was New Zealand's main export education market, accounting for 23 per cent of the 88,557 pupils that studied here in 2008.

- © Fairfax NZ News