jads

Hi

If we end up in NZ (most probably ChCh), does anyone have any experience about fees etc. Can you give me the ages for compulsory school, sixth form, uni age etc. How would they look upon me as a 16 year old with pretty good GCSE's.

Cheers Sam (Jads's son)

dustylegs11

Great question Sam,
We would also like to know this, as we have a 13 year old and a 17 year old who is just at the end of the first year on an IT course at college here.

bjddavies

You may have to pay the 'overseas fees' which are about five times the 'domestic students' fees if you have not lived in NZ for two years. You should check about this with the university itself or Studylink.

My 'domestic' fees were about $3700 per year.

You may not be able to claim student living allowance if you have not been resident in NZ for two years, assuming you are sufficiently poor to be eligible to claim in the first place.

I don't know about GCSEs being recognised but the certainly recognised my A levels but don't forget your certificates.

newt

Back in the Good Old Days, we used to have real school qualifications, like School Certificate, and Sixth Form Certificate, and University Entrance (which qualified one to matriculate at any university), and Higher School Certificate, which signified that one had hung around for the seventh form as well, and Bursary, which was either an "A" or a "B", and which entitled one to a larger study grant than one was afforded by having only University Entrance.

In those more enlightened times, when we paid kids to go and get higher education, thems as wot wasn't interested could slip out at age 15 and get a job instead; and there were, in fact, jobs for them to go and do.

Nowadays we have the NCEA, which I am informed stands for National Certificate in Educational Achievement. Everyone gets one just for turning up to class most of the time, or even if they don't, by claiming that being required to turn up for class violates their human rights.

There are no passes or fails in the NCEA. There are, I am told, such things as "Merit" and "Excellence" for the truly bright, but no-one is allowed to know how well they actually did, because this would discriminate against the thickies.
There are no external exams anymore. All assessment is internal. Standards are vague and consistency is non-existent.

Many schools, both private and State, are opting to adopt British exams instead, particularly the Cambridge entrance exams, which still seem to mean something. If you have good GCSEs you'll have no worries, employers here know what they are and what they're worth.

Now then. Cutting to the important stuff, you can't now leave school before the age of 16 unless you have a job offer (obtained through a school work experience programme) and a school release approval (not sure of its real name), which may allow you to leave at 15-and-a-half.
However this is going up to 17 (school or approved training of some kind), and will be 18 if the Labour Government is re-elected, which thankfully they won't be (we hope).

You won't get a study grant anymore, thanks to politicians who all got their varsity education courtesy of study grants, but hurrah! You can get a student loan! These days it will be interest free, but it will still end up being what you have in life instead of a mortgage, since you won't ever be able to afford both in New Zealand. This is why so many young educated Kiwis vanish to overseas, where they can earn real money, never to return. Another few decades and the powers-that-be may make the connection between these things, but we do not hold our breath.

However, 'tis not all gloom. Depending on what you want to study, you may like to look at the Southland Institute of Technology( (insert 3 "w"s).sit.ac.nz/ ), which has a zero-fees scheme, funded by the Southland Regional Council and the Invercargill City Council. You'll still have to pay to live, but Invers is a cheap city, and besides, your folks are rich Pommie migrants, haha. so they can subsidise you. Bet they'll be looking forward to that we put No. 1 Daughter through a hairdressing course at said institution. She's now using her qualification to stay home and have babies never mind, that's life, eh.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers

Richard

bjddavies

newt.

You can get a student living allowance to study which for me was about $220 per week when university term was on. You can also get a "bonded merit" allowance to pay for some of the fees so long as you stay in NZ for a certain period. Of course I legged it to Oz as soon as my period expired so it had little effect on me staying behind.

You are right about the decline in school standards in NZ. I did my schooling in the UK and it does seem that the NZ students had a lot of better things to do than study, such as surfing, doing up cars with very noisy exhausts, scuba diving etc and all the outdoorsy things that NZ has to offer.

I got a loan to pay the fees and Studylink were forever trying to get me to borrow more to finance the afforementioned surfing lifestyle but I wisely declined their kind offers.

jads

Thanks for your replies, I'm not sure if its a good thing or not to finish off my education in NZ
Is it a case that I would finish my education in NZ without many prospects afterwards. Will I have to leave NZ and will my NZ education be recognised and valued in other countries, ie UK.

Sam

Kiwiprincess

No idea. But, as someone once told me in the UK (I have a History degree from Victoria University of Wellington), unless anyone went to a Ivy or well known school in the USA, or a UK school the likelihood of them even having heard of any school overseas was pretty low. I am not sure if it was a good or a bad thing, but i don't think I was ever 'marked down' because of it.

The only slight difference was that we didn't come out of University with a degree with the number grade after it (2:1? etc...). However, when you explained you had the equivalent of an A, B, C people understood.

Certainly my friends who went into the professional area where their degree was directly relevant (eg Law, Accounting) in the UK found no problem. It was possible that it was easy to be an accountant because in some cases the firms had a lot of kiwis in them.

But I am talking about London here. Not sure about other places.

Student Allowances are means tested according to the parents income up until the child is 24 (i think it was lowered recently from 25?) regardless of whether they live at home or not. Which means that if the student has two parents working they are almost certainly ineligible for an allowance. Of the students at my high school i vividly recall the day that we had a person come from the university to explain fees etc and she mentioned the total parental income (at that stage 50k, now about 60k) and the looks on everyones faces as they did a kind of mental calculation as they worked out they were ineligible. The only people i know who got allowances came from families where one parent of the two worked, OR where they had no contact with their other parent for years (and again, only one parent worked).


However, unless you have a particular desire to go straight to university or tertiary education as a 16 year old with good GSCEs you could probably just finish high school (basically, you finish near your 18th birthday as a general guide). This could be a good way to settle into Chch and get a good understanding of what is available. By far the majority of my high school carried through (we had a high retention - ie not dropping out) and went to university or polytech after Year 13 (then it was 7th form). Very few people, even if they could have left early actually did. Though this is probably representative of many people in the 'burbs rather than across NZ as a whole.

Have you checked a few of the university website?

www.canterbury.ac.nz

They have some good information for overseas students and what they actually consider overseas students:
http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/enrol/new/check.shtml

General info which is quite helpful because it might help with jargon and stuff:
http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/intstud/

newt

No, it's not always that bad, some courses don't cost as much, and some jobs do pay reasonably.

I went back to school a few years ago (about ten years ago now ) and did a two-year correspondence polytech course in viticulture and winemaking, with block courses on campus. Paid for fees, textbooks, and some of the travel with a student loan, about $5,000 in all. It took me about three years to pay it back through Inland Revenue, but it has paid off; I make a lot more as a winemaker than I used to as a tractor salesman, and the lifestyle is whole lot more attractive too

Anything in IT, graphics, engineering etc will still earn you a fairly well paying job (by NZ standards), but you will make more working offshore, and your NZ education and qualifications will be well regarded.

Medical, dental, and vet students end up with the biggest loans and the lowest payscales relative to overseas earning potential.

What is it that you're wanting to study?

jads

[QUOTE
What is it that you're wanting to study?[/QUOTE]

I am hoping to study either Art, Design, Marketing or all 3. Depends on what courses there are. We are looking to go to ChCh in October if the House sells! Mum reckons it will and Dad doesnt. If we stay in Uk I will be taking A-levels in Art and English Lit, Do Nz kids take exams at 16 and then do A levels or similar.

Thanks for your help

Sam

helenlloyd202

you're best off in Auckland or Otago (if you also want to experience the student life to the full) for Uni's. Otherwise Canterbury will do.