The EEL payment obligation of New Zealand’s international education providers for all enrolments of the 2020 and 2021 calendar years are suspended by extending the Education and Training Act 2020. Payments are due to resume in May 2022, for enrolments from 1 January 2022.
What is the Export Education Levy (EEL) of New Zealand?
The Education providers who enrol international fee-paying students are required to pay an Export Education Levy (EEL) to the Government.
This levy consists of a variable component based on the tuition fees paid by international students and the GST charged on the levy.
Collected levy revenue is used to safeguard the educational quality to sustain New Zealand’s reputation as a study destination by funding a broad range of activities and projects associated with the export education industry, such as
- Reimbursements for international students caught out by programme and provider closures
- Promotion and marketing
- Quality assurance
- Pastoral Care of International Students
- International Student Contract Dispute Resolution Scheme (DRS) etc [3]
The EEL rates in 2019 were 0.50% of the international student tuition fees for universities, Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics, and private schools, and 0.89% of international student tuition fees for Private Training Establishments.[4]
In the 2020 and 2021 calendar years, the EEL payment obligation was suspended by recognizing the significant and unprecedented financial hardship being faced by the international education sector because of the global pandemic.
Why New Zealand Government is consulting on a further suspension of the Export Education Levy in the 2022 calendar year?
In the 2020-2021 academic year, New Zealand has received very few international students. The education providers and other stakeholders were managed to adjust and reduce the costs in this span of time but the government believes 2022 would be a hard time for them. It has been forecasted 2023 would be showing the lowest number of international students in NZ. Because of the long and COVID-19 affected recruitment pipeline, the export education sector will likely take substantial time to reconstruct, even when the international students return to New Zealand in volume.
Because of this, the Government considering suspending the EEL to support providers to recover and rebuild the sector by equipping them to redirect EEL funds to their other essential systems. [2]
