This week on the podcast from Nijmegen on the SUs study tour the team discuss the return of the UK to Erasmus+. What steps can UK HE take to ensure that UK students take advantage of and get the benefits of mobility?
Plus there’s a Private Members’ Bill on student loan timings, and the team share reflections on the associations, student leaders, curricula and food they’ve seen across Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and Switzerland.
With Abi Taylor, President at Durham SU, Gary Hughes, CEO at Durham SU, Mack Marshall, Community and Policy Officer at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.
eSchool News is counting down the 10 most-read stories of 2025. Story #10 focuses on teaching strategies around AI.
Key points:
In the last year, we’ve seen an extraordinary push toward integrating artificial intelligence in classrooms. Among educators, that trend has evoked responses from optimism to opposition. “Will AI replace educators?” “Can it really help kids?” “Is it safe?” Just a few years ago, these questions were unthinkable, and now they’re in every K-12 school, hanging in the air.
Given the pace at which AI technologies are changing, there’s a lot still to be determined, and I won’t pretend to have all the answers. But as a school counselor in Kansas who has been using SchoolAI to support students for years, I’ve seen that AI absolutely can help kids and is safe when supervised. At this point, I think it’s much more likely to help us do our jobs better than to produce any other outcome. I’ve discovered that if you implement AI thoughtfully, it empowers students to explore their futures, stay on track for graduation, learn new skills, and even improve their mental health.
Full disclosure: I have something adjacent to a tech background. I worked for a web development marketing firm before moving into education. However, I want to emphasize that you don’t have to be an expert to use AI effectively. Success is rooted in curiosity, trial and error, and commitment to student well-being. Above all, I would urge educators to remember that AI isn’t about replacing us. It allows us to extend our reach to students and our capacity to cater to individual needs, especially when shorthanded.
Let me show you what that looks like.
Building emotional resilience
Students today face enormous emotional pressures. And with national student-to-counselor ratios at nearly double the recommended 250-to-1, school staff can’t always be there right when students need us.
That’s why I created a chatbot named Pickles (based on my dog at home, whom the kids love but who is too rambunctious to come to school with me). This emotional support bot gives my students a way to process small problems like feeling left out at recess or arguing with a friend. It doesn’t replace my role, but it does help triage students so I can give immediate attention to those facing the most urgent challenges.
Speaking of which, AI has revealed some issues I might’ve otherwise missed. One fourth grader, who didn’t want to talk to me directly, opened up to the chatbot about her parents’ divorce. Because I was able to review her conversation, I knew to follow up with her. In another case, a shy fifth grader who struggled to maintain conversations learned to initiate dialogue with her peers using chatbot-guided social scripts. After practicing over spring break, she returned more confident and socially fluent.
Aside from giving students real-time assistance, these tools offer me critical visibility and failsafes while I’m running around trying to do 10 things at once.
Personalized career exploration and academic support
One of my core responsibilities as a counselor is helping students think about their futures. Often, the goals they bring to me are undeveloped (as you would expect—they’re in elementary school, after all): They say, “I’m going to be a lawyer,” or “I’m going to be a doctor.” In the past, I would point them toward resources I thought would help, and that was usually the end of it. But I always wanted them to reflect more deeply about their options.
So, I started using an AI chatbot to open up that conversation. Instead of jumping to a job title, students are prompted to answer what they’re interested in and why. The results have been fascinating—and inspiring. In a discussion with one student recently, I was trying to help her find careers that would suit her love of travel. After we plugged in her strengths and interests, the chatbot suggested cultural journalism, which she was instantly excited about. She started journaling and blogging that same night. She’s in sixth grade.
What makes this process especially powerful is that it challenges biases. By the end of elementary school, many kids have already internalized what careers they think they can or can’t pursue–often based on race, gender, or socioeconomic status. AI can disrupt that. It doesn’t know what a student looks like or where they’re from. It just responds to their curiosity. These tools surface career options for kids–like esports management or environmental engineering–that I might not be able to come up with in the moment. It’s making me a better counselor and keeping me apprised of workforce trends, all while encouraging my students to dream bigger and in more detail.
Along with career decisions, AI helps students make better academic decisions, especially in virtual school environments where requirements vary district to district. I recently worked with a virtual school to create an AI-powered tool that helps students identify which classes they need for graduation. It even links them to district-specific resources and state education departments to guide their planning. These kinds of tools lighten the load of general advising questions for school counselors and allow us to spend more time supporting students one on one.
My advice to educators: Try it
We tell our students that failure is part of learning. So why should we be afraid to try something new? When I started using AI, I made mistakes. But AI doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful. Around the globe, AI school assistants are already springing up and serving an ever-wider range of use cases.
I recommend educators start small. Use a trusted platform. And most importantly, stay human. AI should never replace the relationships at the heart of education. But if used wisely, it can extend your reach, personalize your impact, and unlock your students’ potential.
We have to prepare our students for a world that’s changing fast–maybe faster than ever. I, for one, am glad I have AI by my side to help them get there.
Hanna Kemble-Mick, Indian Hills Elementary
Hanna Kemble-Mick has been an elementary school counselor for eight years. She currently works at Indian Hills Elementary, where she uses SchoolAI to enhance her work. She’s also the Dean of Elementary School Counselors for USD 437, holds the Kansas School Counselor of the Year title, and is a 2025 School Counselor of the Year® finalist. Additionally, she works as a Counselor Leader Coordinator for KSDE. Hanna is committed to supporting counselors and providing practical solutions for their practice.
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“It takes a village to raise a child.” In a residential school, this is not a proverb — it’s daily life. Everyone has a role, and each contribution matters.
A teacher can teach hygiene, but a caretaker helps a young girl practice it. We can hold sessions on menstrual health, but when a child experiences it for the first time, she needs a motherly figure, not a presentation. We may put energy-conservation charts in classrooms, but it’s in the kitchen and cooking classes where these ideas are lived and understood.
A residential school is really a modern-day gurukul. Growth is stitched into simple routines — making their beds, cleaning their rooms, doing their dishes, learning with a study buddy, and living peacefully with peers from different backgrounds.
A caretaker reminding them to tidy up, a kitchen staff member urging them to try a new vegetable, a warden sitting with them after a tough day — each one shapes the child quietly.
Our girls often say they miss the hostel more than the school building, because that’s where they truly grew. That’s the magic of a residential setup: the environment becomes the teacher, and adults simply keep the child aligned to the right path.
Other evidence suggests that even watching a skilled performer from multiple angles and in slow motion is not enough to master a skill from sight alone, as “no matter how many times people watch a performance, they never gain one critical piece: the feeling of doing”. Research does suggest that observing others is better than doing nothing, but to really develop talents and expertise requires many hours of deliberate practice.
A recent survey asked students which of the following five options would they first seek and then use most to help them learn new material. The options were a) watching others perform the task, b) reading about it or c) hearing the instructions. Overall, watching others perform was reported as the go to strategy, the easiest to process and the most effective. The results from this study suggest that this may not be a wise choice. As the researchers of the study conclude, “while people may feel they are acquiring the skills that athletes, artists and technicians perform in front of their eyes, often these skills may be easier seen than done”.
Students can complete faculty-made case study prompts with a generative AI model called STRATPATH.
Nicole Coomber has taught consulting and experiential learning courses at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business for years, assigning graduate students take-home case studies that mimic consulting interviews.
But, like many professors in the ChatGPT era, Coomber has found that the assignments no longer challenge her classes, because students simply enter questions into large language models and submit whatever the generative AI model spits out.
“I was discovering that students could pretty much take my assignment, plug it into AI and get a perfect answer without having to go through some of the struggle that we know is part of learning,” she said.
Case studies are a critical part of the interview process for many business students, so ensuring they engage with the exercises and don’t circumvent critical thinking is important to Coomber. But rather than create a new low-tech assignment, Coomber partnered with a group of master’s-level students to make an AI tool to act as a case interviewer.
The result is STRATPATH, a generative AI tool that delivers faculty-created case studies to assess and provide real-time feedback to business students. The tool both connects students’ learning to real-world scenarios and provides career-readiness skills, prepping students for interviews after graduation.
How it works: STRATPATH was developed by six recent UMD business school graduates: Deep Dalsaniya, Anna Huertazuela, Aditya Kamath, Aromal Nair, Krishang Parakh and Venkatesh Shirbhate. The team first assembled to participate in a case competition for M.B.A. students in 2024 and then returned to the university after graduation to launch STRATPATH, using funds allocated by the dean.
“It was a bit of, ‘Hey, these are really talented students, the job market is really hard, they could use a soft landing to keep up with their job search,’” Coomber said. “It’s turned into something much more; we’ve built something that’s really incredible.”
Students can chat with STRATPATH or respond with audio to the faculty-developed case study.
To set up the tool, professors provide the case-study story they want the student to answer, a rubric or feedback form, and some examples of ideal answers, Dalsaniya said. Based on the input, STRATPATH facilitates prompts via audio or text, engaging the student in a conversation.
“Students are getting prepared for thinking spontaneously and building their critical thinking abilities over all,” Dalsaniya said.
STRATPATH relies on a large language model with additional boundaries set by developers to reduce the odds that the AI hallucinates, accepts incorrect information or provides overly complimentary feedback. It also investigates student responses to ensure that they aren’t cheating using outside sources.
“It doesn’t say, ‘Deep, you’re so smart, that’s right!’” Coomber explained. “It’s like, ‘How did you get there?’ So even if the students are typing into ChatGPT, then putting that answer into our platform, our platform will go, ‘How did you get there?’”
The platform also doesn’t allow for copying and pasting responses, so if a student is sidebarring with ChatGPT while responding to STRATPATH, they have to at least transcribe responses (and at a reasonably human words-per-minute rate), which will hopefully produce learning in some capacity, Dalsaniya said.
“Our main focus is whether their critical thinking abilities are increasing or not, and it does even if they are cheating,” he said.
The impact: STRATPATH provides instant grading and real-time personalized feedback, saving faculty time and helping students adjust faster.
It used to take Coomber hours to go over student assignments, which could hinder learning due to the long lag time between assignment and feedback. Now she can spend more time conducting face-to-face learning or holding office hours.
Anecdotal feedback from students so far indicates they feel better prepared to tackle interviews, and they’ve appreciated the assessments from the tool, which identifies both where they’re excelling and areas where they could improve.
What’s next: Coomber and her team are looking to identify other campus stakeholders who might have a use case for STRATPATH. One option is to work alongside the career center to deliver behavioral interview prompts. Many interviewers require applicants to use the STAR method—situation, task, action and result—to respond to questions and use it to assess talent, and STRATPATH could be one forum for students to practice these questions.
Dalsaniya and the development team are also investigating ways to feed STRATPATH additional resources from faculty to provide a richer evaluation of student responses to case studies.
“Case-based learning has no right answer—all answers can be right,” Dalsaniya said. “What we are trying to focus on is how we can integrate all the class materials of the professor, including their slides, their video lectures, within the feedback so that the student can see the feedback and reference those slide numbers or chapters or video transcripts.”
The team is also looking for additional funding sources to scale and possibly license the tool for outside groups.
You spent all of sophomore year perfecting your study system. Organized, color-coded flashcard, easy to review: it worked beautifully. Then junior year hit, and suddenly those same study methods feel completely useless when you’re preparing for exams.
What happened? Well, here’s what didn’t happen: You didn’t suddenly forget how to study. And you didn’t suddenly get ignorant.
What did happen is that something leveled up, but your system didn’t level up with it.
As a study skills expert with 20 years of teaching experience, I see this all the time. Students come to me frustrated because a method that used to work has stopped working. They assume they’re doing something wrong, or that they just need to “try harder.”
But the reality is usually much simpler: their system stopped working for a very specific, identifiable reason.
An important note before we go further: This post assumes you’re starting with a legitimate study system, meaning you’re already using active recall and spaced repetition as your foundation.
If you’re re-reading notes, highlighting textbooks, or cramming the night before, those aren’t study systems that “stopped working”: they’re passive methods that never worked in the first place. Active recall (testing yourself) and spaced repetition (spreading study sessions over time) are non-negotiables at every level. This post is about what happens when you’re using those evidence-based methods correctly, but they still feel less effective than they used to be.
In this post, I’m breaking down the five main reasons legitimate study systems fail, and what each signal means. Understanding why your system stopped working is the first step to figuring out what to do next.
Why Your Study Systems Don’t Work Anymore
Below are the five primary reasons why your “good” study systems stopped working. You may find that one, two, or all apply to your situation.
1. Developmental Transitions: You’ve Leveled Up, But Your System Hasn’t
Academic demands don’t just get “harder” as you progress through school: they fundamentally change. What worked in high school might be perfectly executed active recall, but if you’re still using high school-level active recall in college, you’re bringing the right tool at the wrong intensity.
As you move to harder courses or higher levels (from high school to college, for example), the following three changes happen:
1. The cognitive demand increases.
High school tests often reward memorization and recall. College exams (and especially graduate-level work) require synthesis, application, and critical analysis.
In other words, your flashcards might have been perfect for memorizing vocabulary or formulas, but now you need to apply those concepts to novel situations or synthesize information across multiple sources.
2. The external structure disappears.
In high school, teachers often build review into class time, tell you exactly what to study, and remind you about deadlines.
But in college, professors expect you to figure out what’s important, create your own review schedule, and manage longer-term projects without check-ins. Your study system (and you!) now has to do the work your teacher used to do.
3. The pace accelerates.
You might have had a week to prepare for a high school test covering two chapters. In college, you might have three days to prepare for an exam covering six weeks of material across lectures, readings, and discussions.
What This Signal Means and What to Do:
Your active recall methods aren’t wrong; they’re just not scaled to match your current demands. Here’s how to level up your study methods:
1. Extend your spaced repetition timeline.
If you used to start studying three days before a test, you now need to start a week or two out. If you used to start a week out, now start two weeks out. Spread your active recall sessions over more days to account for the increased volume of material.
2. Add more complex practice problems.
Don’t just test yourself on definitions — test yourself on application. Look for practice problems at the end of textbook chapters, old exams from your professor (just ask; they may say no, but it’s worth asking), or create your own “what if” scenarios that force you to apply concepts in new ways.
3. Create study materials that force higher-order thinking.
Instead of flashcards that ask “What is X?”, create questions like “How does X relate to Y?” or “What would happen if X changed?” Write practice essay prompts for yourself. Teach the concept out loud as if explaining it to someone who’s never taken the class. Make Venn diagrams.
2. The Invisible Skill Gap: Your Classes Require Skills You Don’t Have Yet
Many teachers assume you have certain skills that you were never actually taught, especially executive function skills like planning, prioritizing, and self-monitoring. Or metacognitive skills like knowing how to study effectively or recognizing when you actually understand something versus when you just think you do.
These invisible skills weren’t required at earlier academic levels, so your study system didn’t need to account for them. But now they’re essential, and their absence is why it feels like your system is failing. (Again, it’s not that your system is failing…it’s just that it needs to scale up.)
Examples of invisible skill gaps:
1. Backwards planning (aka reverse engineering).
In high school, most assignments were short-term: read chapter 3, answer the questions, done. In college, you have research papers due in six weeks, and you need to break that down into smaller tasks and deadlines yourself. Your planner worked before because you just wrote down what the teacher told you to do. Now you need a system that helps you create your own deadlines.
2. Managing competing priorities.
When you had five classes with predictable homework each night, a simple to-do list was often enough. Now you have fewer classes but longer-term projects, exams on completely different schedules, and activities outside of school. You need a system that helps you see the big picture and make strategic decisions about where to focus your time.
3. Critical reading vs. just reading.
You could sometimes get away with passive reading in high school because teachers reviewed everything in class. Now you’re expected to extract key concepts, identify arguments, and connect ideas across readings on your own. Your old annotation system captured facts, but didn’t require you to truly thinkanalytically about the material.
What This Signal Means and What to Do About It:
You’re simply discovering skills you haven’t developed yet. Here are what skills to focus on:
1. Build in backwards planning.
For any assignment longer than a week, break it into smaller milestones with self-imposed deadlines. Put those milestones in your planner or calendar just like you would “real” deadlines.
2. Use a priority system, not just a task list.
Add a way to mark tasks as high/medium/low priority, or use a system that helps you see what’s due soon versus what’s due later. This helps you make decisions when everything feels urgent.
3. Add metacognitive check-ins to your study sessions.
After each study session, ask yourself: “Could I teach this to someone else right now?” or “What am I still confused about?” This self-awareness helps you catch gaps before the exam does.
3. Capacity vs. Method: Sometimes It’s More About What You Can Handle, Not How You Handle It
Sometimes a study system stops “working” not because there’s anything wrong with the method, but because you’re operating beyond your capacity. Maybe you’re maxed out and overloaded and don’t even know it. (Or maybe you do know, but you just know what to do about it.)
When you’re at capacity, even the most effective active recall methods will feel impossible to execute. You’ll cut corners, skip steps, or give up on the whole thing simply because you don’t have the bandwidth to figure things out.
Signs you’re at capacity:
Everything feels hard, even methods you know should work or that used to work
You’re consistently sacrificing sleep to keep up
You’re skipping meals or exercise because there’s “no time”
You feel anxious or overwhelmed most days
You’re behind in multiple classes, not just one
Helpful Resource: Are You Doing Too Much? Link
When you’re in this state of maxed-out capacity, the problem isn’t your study technique. It’s that you can’t execute because you’re exhausted.
What This Signal Means and What to Do About It:
Before you overhaul your entire study system, honestly evaluate whether you need to reduce your load or increase your support. Here’s what to consider:
1. Audit your commitments.
List everything you’re doing: classes, work hours, extracurriculars, family obligations. Is anything optional that you could step back from, even temporarily? Sometimes “doing less, better” is the answer. (Inside SchoolHabits University, I have students complete an Activity Inventory, a self-assessment that provides concrete, measurable evidence about whether they’re overcommitted or undercommitted. This kind of objective data can help you see the reality of your schedule instead of just feeling overwhelmed.)
Look at your course load specifically. Are you taking too many credits? Are you taking multiple high-demand classes in the same semester? Sometimes the best study system is strategic course selection.
2. Increase support, not just effort.
This might mean going to office hours, hiring a tutor, joining a study group, or talking to a counselor about time management or stress. It might also mean having honest conversations with family about what you can realistically handle.
No study system, no matter how evidence-based, can compensate for chronic overload. If you’re consistently operating at 110% capacity, something has to give.
4. You Cling to What You Know Because You’re Nervous to Try Something New
This one is more psychological than practical, but it’s just as important to consider: sometimes students keep using a system they know isn’t working because changing it feels even scarier than failing with it.
Familiar failure has a strange comfort to it. At least you know what to expect. At least you know it’s the system’s fault and not yours. At least you don’t have to risk trying something new and discovering it doesn’t work either. These are all super uncomfortable realities to accept.
Below are some mental traps that you might be falling into. Read them with an open mind.
1. “At least I know what to expect.”
Even if your current system produces mediocre results, those results are predictable. Changing your system means uncertainty, and uncertainty feels risky when grades are on the line.
2. The sunk cost fallacy.
“I spent so much time building this planner system / making these flashcards / organizing my notes this way. I can’t just abandon it now.” Yes, you can. Time already spent is gone, whether you continue or not.
3. Perfectionism paralysis.
“If I can’t find the perfect system that will work forever, I might as well stick with what I have.” This is all-or-nothing thinking. Better is better, even if it’s not perfect.
4. Fear that the problem is you.
This is the deepest trap. If you change your system and it still doesn’t work, then you have to confront the possibility that maybe you’re the problem. So you don’t change anything, because at least then you can blame the method.
What This Signal Means and What to Do About It:
Resistance to changing a system is often emotional, not logical, and that’s completely normal. But here’s how to work through it:
1. Name the fear.
Ask yourself honestly: “What am I afraid will happen if I change this?” Sometimes just identifying the fear reduces its power.
2. Start small.
You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. Pick one element to modify and try it for a week. Low stakes, low risk.
3. Separate your worth from your system.
Your study methods are tools, not reflections of your intelligence or character. If a tool isn’t working, you get a different tool. That’s it.
5. Signal vs. Noise: Bad Day or Bad System?
Not every struggle means your system is awful. Sometimes you just have a bad week. Sometimes the material is genuinely harder. Sometimes life gets in the way.
The challenge is distinguishing between temporary friction (noise) and systematic failure (signal).
Students often abandon perfectly good systems after one rough experience, or they stick with failing systems because they blame external circumstances instead of recognizing a pattern.
It’s important to know the difference. Here’s how:
1. One bad week doesn’t mean your whole system is bad.
If your active recall study method worked great all semester and then you bombed one quiz during a particularly stressful week, that’s noise. Don’t overreact.
2. Consistent friction over 2-3 weeks means something needs attention.
If you’ve been struggling to execute your system, feeling frustrated with the results, or dreading your study sessions for multiple weeks in a row, that’s a signal. Pay attention to it.
3. The “good days/bad days” test.
Does your system work on your good days? If yes, the system is probably fine. You might just need to work on consistency or capacity (see Section 3). If your system doesn’t work even when you have time, energy, and focus, then your study system itself needs adjustment.
4. Consider seasonal and cyclical patterns.
Midterms and finals weeks are brutal for everyone. The week before spring break when you have three papers due is not the time to evaluate whether your planning system works. So look at patterns across normal weeks, not crisis weeks.
What This Signal Means and What to Do About It:
Trust patterns over individual instances. Some strategies:
1. Track your system for at least two weeks before making changes.
Keep a simple log: Did I follow my system today? How did it feel? What were the results? Patterns will emerge.
2. Distinguish between execution problems and design problems.
If you keep forgetting to use your planner, that’s an execution problem (maybe you need reminders or a different location for it). If you’re using your planner consistently but it’s not helping you manage your time, that’s a design problem (the system itself needs work).
3. Give new systems a fair trial.
When you do make changes, commit to trying them for at least two weeks before judging whether they work. New systems always feel awkward at first.
Final Notes: What To Do With This Information
If your study system stopped working, it’s normal and understandable. It’s just a sign that one or more of the following might be happening.
Your academic demands leveled up, but your system didn’t
You’re missing key skills your classes assume you have
You’re operating beyond capacity
You’re clinging to familiar failure out of fear
You’re reacting to noise instead of recognizing real signals
Recognizing which of these is happening is the critical first step. Once you know why your system stopped working, you can make informed decisions about what to do next.
Sometimes you need to tweak your existing system to work better for you. (If that’s where you are, read “How to Personalize Your Study Skills” for a step-by-step process.) Sometimes you need to reduce your commitments or increase support. And sometimes you need to acknowledge that a system that served you well has run its course, and it’s time to build something new.
Here’s what I want you to remember: no study system lasts forever. As you grow, as your classes change, as your life circumstances shift, your systems need to evolve too. That’s called evolution and adaptation, and it’s not only part of life but it literally is life.
The students who succeed aren’t the ones who find the perfect system and never change it; they’re the ones who notice when something stops working and have the courage to do something about it.
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According to data highlighted by Immigration New Zealand (INZ), the government agency responsible for managing the country’s immigration system, the first 10 months of 2025 saw 55,251 study visa applications, down from 58,361 in the same period last year.
However, approval rates have risen sharply. In 2024, INZ approved 42,724 of 58,361 applications (81.5%) and declined 9,161 (17.5%). Meanwhile, in 2025, despite fewer applications at 55,251, approvals rose to 43,203 (88.2%) with 5,317 declined (10.9%).
NZ sets itself apart from other key study destinations
Even as major anglophone study destinations take a cautious approach to international education policy, New Zealand is aiming to be an outlier in the market.
The country is looking to boost international student enrolments from 83,700 to 119,000 by 2034 and double the sector’s value to NZD$7.2 billion (GBP £3.2bn) under the recently launched International Education Going for Growthplan.
This month, new rules came into effect allowing eligible international tertiary and secondary students with visas from November 3 to work up to 25 hours a week, up from 20, while a new short-term work visa for some vocational graduates is also expected to be introduced soon.
“As part of the International Education Going for Growth Plan, changes were announced to immigration settings to support sustainable growth and enhance New Zealand’s appeal as a study destination. These changes aim to maintain education quality while managing immigration risk,” Celia Coombes, director of visas for INZ, told The PIE.
“Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and Education New Zealand (ENZ) work in close partnership to achieve these goals.”
We have more students applying for Pathway Visas year on year, which means more visas granted for longer periods, and less ‘year by year’ applications Celia Coombes, Immigration New Zealand
Why the drop in study visa applications?
While study visa approval rates have skyrocketed over the past year — a stark contrast to the Covid period, when universities across New Zealand faced massive revenue losses owing to declining numbers — stakeholders point to a mix of factors behind the drop in new applications.
“There has been an increase in approvals, but overall, a slight decrease in the number of students applying for a visa. However, interest in New Zealand continues to grow,” stated Coombes, who added that the number of individuals holding a valid study visa rose to 58,192 in August 2025, up from 45,512 a year earlier.
“We have more students applying for Pathway Visas year on year, which means more visas granted for longer periods, and less ‘year by year’ applications.”
While multi-year pathway visas can cover a full planned study path, reducing the need for repeated applications, Richard Kensington, an NZ-based international education consultant, says refinements could make the route more effective in attracting international students.
“The Pathway Visa, introduced nearly a decade ago as a trial, has never been fully expanded. Although reviews are complete and the scheme is set to become permanent, no additional providers have been given access,” stated Kensington.
“Simple refinements — such as allowing pathways to a broad university degree rather than a specific named programme — would encourage more students to utilise this route.”
The drop could also be linked to the underdeveloped school sector and the slower recovery of New Zealand’s vocational education sector, as noted by Kensington.
“The school sector remains one of New Zealand’s most untapped international education markets. Demand is growing, especially from families where a parent wishes to accompany the student. The Guardian Parent Visa makes that a viable option,” stated Kensington.
“Vocational education hasn’t rebounded in the same way. The loss of work rights for sub-degree diplomas has significantly reduced demand from traditional migration markets.”
New Zealand’s vocational education woes
Just this year, the New Zealand government announced the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga, the country’s largest vocational education provider, formed through the merger of 16 Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics.
It is being replaced by 10 standalone polytechnics, following concerns that the model had become too costly and centralised.
“Te Pūkenga’s rise and fall created real confusion offshore. With standalone polytechnics returning, we should see greater stability from 2026 onwards,” Kensington added.
“Many polytechnics are now relying on degree and master’s programmes, putting them in more direct competition with universities.”
Applications fall in China, climb in India
As per data shared by INZ on decided applications across both 2024 and 2025 — including on ones submitted in earlier years — countries like India (+2.7%), Nepal (+26.8%), Germany (+5.2%), and the Philippines (+7.8%) have seen growth in the number of study visas approved.
Meanwhile, many East and Southeast Asian markets have recorded year-on-year declines, most notably the largest sending market, China, which dropped by 9.9%.
The data shows that while 16,568 study visas were approved for China in January–October 2024, this fell to 14,929 in 2025 though it remains the largest source country.
Other markets such as Japan (-9.7%), South Korea ( -24.8%), and Thailand (-33.7%) also saw significant declines.
According to Frank Xing, director of marketing and operations at Novo Education Consulting, the slowdown from China is clear, with weaker student interest reflected in both their enquiries and feedback from partners, and echoed by some New Zealand institutions.
“It’s a mixed picture — a few schools, particularly in the secondary sector, are still doing well, but many providers are starting to feel the impact,” stated Xing, who believes several factors are driving the slowdown.
“The first is the weaker Chinese economy — many families have been affected by job losses or lower business income. In the past, property assets often helped families fund overseas study, but the real estate downturn has reduced that flexibility,” he added, also noting New Zealand’s own unemployment challenges and competition from lower-cost destinations.
“We’ve actually seen some students abandon their New Zealand study plans or switch to more affordable destinations such as Malaysia or parts of Europe.”
According to Xing, while China remains one of New Zealand schools’ strongest markets, this could change as Chinese families place greater emphasis on career outcomes — an area where New Zealand’s slower job market remains a challenge.
He added that New Zealand’s role as the 2025 Country of Honour at China’s premier education expo could help raise awareness among prospective students.
False applications remain a major concern
For Education New Zealand and INZ, the more immediate challenge now lies in addressing fraudulent applications, according to Coombes.
“New Zealand sees a lot of false financial documents. To address this and help ensure students have the money they need to live and study in New Zealand, we are improving processes to maintain integrity and streamline processing,” stated Coombes.
“This includes expanding the Funds Transfer Scheme, where students deposit their living costs in New Zealand, and they are released monthly.”
According to Kensington, some agencies across South Asia and likely parts of Africa, where New Zealand has limited representation may not meet required standards, creating challenges. However, he believes improved processing is reducing the impact.
“INZ only accepts financial evidence from specific banks in some jurisdictions. Student loans must be secured; unsecured loans aren’t accepted even from major banks,” stated Kensington.
“It’s hard to say whether fraud is increasing, but the rise in high-quality applications means INZ can process many files quickly and devote more time to forensic checks where needed.”
New Home Office migration statistics show the full effect of an almost outright ban on dependants – with numbers dropping sharply for the second year in a row since the policy was announced.
While there were 419,558 main applications for UK study visas in the year ending September 2025, marking a 7% increase on the previous year, there were 20,366 dependants – a 57% decrease year on year.
It marks the second consecutive year of falling dependants, with this number decreasing annually by a whopping 87% in the year ending September 2024.
It follows new rules introduced in January 2024 to ban students on postgraduate-taught programs from bringing their dependants with them to the UK.
The number of UK study visas issued to international students and their dependants rose sharply after 2016 – reaching a post-Covid peak of 652,072 in 2023. Now, since the dependants ban, the number of study visas issued has fallen to 439,924.
According to the Home Office, there has been roughly one dependant for every 20 main study visa applicants since the year ending March 2025 – a stark decline since the year ending September 2023, when this number stood at six per 20 main applicants.
Source: Home Office
Indian students were issued the most sponsored study visas in the year ending September 2025, with 99,18 visas issued. Chinese students made up the second biggest cohort – with 89,397 visas issued, 15% fewer than the previous year.
Pakistani students were the third biggest group – issued 39,924 study visas, while there were gains for Nepali students (up 89% to 20,572) and Nigerian students (up 56% to 30,009).
According to James Pitman, chairman of Independent Higher Education (IHE) and CEO of Studygroup, the effect of the dependants ban has been discriminatory – disproportionately affecting women.
Speaking in a personal capacity at yesterday’s IHE annual conference, Pitman acknowledged that the dependants visa has “a major flaw”, but said that this could have been corrected rather than withdrawing the scheme entirely for taught degrees.
“As predicted by the sector, that withdrawal was gender discriminatory, leading to the loss of 19,000 female students vs prior year in the January 2024 intake alone,” he said. “Every one of those was a human story, of ambitions denied, families fractured, careers restricted and yet again women being discriminated against – in this case by UK government policy.”
Every one of those was a human story, of ambitions denied, families fractured, careers restricted and yet again women being discriminated against James Pitman
Home Office figures obtained by Pitman via a freedom of information request show a marked year-on-year decline in women issued sponsored study visa grants for courses at RQF level 6-8 or equivalent starting in January.
In 2023, of 81,079 total student visas, 45% were issued to women, compared to 55% that were issued to men. But the following year, after the dependants ban was brought in, the gender split was 66% in favour of men. These numbers stayed stable in 2025, the data showed, with 65% of sponsored study visas issued to men.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab told a House of Commons committee last week that the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act (Bill C-12) would target “people who are going to be committing large-scale fraud”.
However, an opposition member, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, rejected the idea that the Liberal government needs sweeping powers to keep the immigration system functioning.
“That sounds like an authoritarian dictatorship to me,” Rempel Garner said.
Languages Canada Executive Director Gonzalo Peralta told The PIE News there was a need to define under what conditions Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) could cancel student visas.
“The term ‘public interest’ as grounds for cancelling visas or applications is vague and does not provide the assurances needed to ensure that legitimate students are not inadvertently impacted by the legislation,” Peralta said.
At the committee meeting, Rempel Garner argued: “It seems like you’re trying to give yourself and your department more powers to correct mistakes in the system that they could have made in screening out potential fraud to begin with.”
The term ‘public interest’ as grounds for cancelling visas or applications is vague and does not provide the assurances needed
In the wake of a large number of fraudulent study permit applications made by unscrupulous education agents, in 2023 the department implemented a system requiring applicants to present a verified letter of acceptance from a designated learning institution in order to obtain a study permit.
In many cases, the students said they were not aware that their agent was submitting fraudulent documents on their behalf.
MP Rempel Garner called out the minister for blaming students and other newcomers to Canada. “Why don’t you make the system work instead of punishing the victims of human trafficking,” she demanded at the meeting.
Larissa Bezo, president of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE), told The PIE her group supports measures to uphold the integrity of the International Student Program. “However, we do not want to see international students who have been the victims of fraud unfairly punished,” Bezo said.
Peralta of Languages Canada condemned the Liberal government for failing to consult with the sector about this legislation and other policy changes.
“In the case of the proposed Bill C-12, a more comprehensive definition is needed of the specific conditions under which IRCC could cancel visas,” Peralta said.
Canadian immigration policy has hit the headlines over the past week after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government set out its intention to cut new international study permits by more than 50% in 2026-2028 – going further with enrolment caps that are already causing significant problems for the international education sector.
