Education New Zealand released the survey last week, which was run by BELTA to measure the “impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the international education sector” in the region in 2021.

“Canada and New Zealand are definitely leading amongst the countries of interest,” said Danilo Torini, one of the leaders on the research team behind the survey.

“While Canada is leading in pretty much all scenarios, New Zealand is also there – and it has a very high percentage among students on consideration of whether a country is competent dealing with Covid, for example,” he told listeners during a webinar to discuss the results.

The survey looked at questionnaires taken by over 1,000 Latin American students and 500 agents, attempting to get the largest scope possible and gauge exactly how the region’s sector was feeling in the second year of the pandemic.

Overall, Canada scored 86.6% interest among students who were asked, with New Zealand coming in second at 72.9% – the UK and Australia followed close behind at 69.7% and 67.3% respectively.

It was made clear that the sum of the total answers to all questions was over 100%, as multiple students answered more questions than others about certain subjects and countries.

New Zealand’s high figures were down to its competence in handling Covid, as previously mentioned, among students, with a 76.3% rate – but among agents, it was also second, with 61.2% to Canada’s score of 95.9%.

It was also dubbed one of the safest in terms of receiving international students in the future, likely down to its stringent Covid protocols over the last two years, especially among agents.

In terms of academic infrastructure and technological resources for hybrid classes, agents were not as impressed, labelling it joint fourth and third respectively.

“New Zealand still scores highly in Brazil, the US is in second place to Canada”

However, among students, it was second in confidence among all four factors, showing how optimistic students are about the country compared to agents.

From Friday, restricted entries to the border are being allowed without the need to self isolate.

“When we segment these results by each Latin American country, we see differences – while New Zealand still scores highly with 58.5% for Brazil, the US is in second place,” Torini pointed out.

Despite this drop from Brazil, New Zealand still leads after Canada in Chile and Colombia, with its score only 2% behind Canada’s in terms of Colombian interest. It placed third in terms of interest from Mexico.