Universities risk becoming internationally irrelevant with Te Tiriti focus

New Zealand’s universities risk becoming internationally irrelevant if they don’t change their offerings, says ACT Tertiary Education spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar.

“Scores from Times Higher Education reveal every university in New Zealand has dropped sharply in its score for ‘international outlook’ over the last five years. The international outlook score measures universities’ ability to attract students and faculty from around the world.

“For example, the University of Auckland’s international outlook score fell from 94.3 in 2023 to 87.2 in the latest report. Victoria University fell from 87.4 to 75, and Waikato fell from 95.4 to 88.1.

“If we can’t attract international talent to our universities, local students will be denied access to world-class knowledge. If we can’t attract international students who pay full fees, local students or taxpayers will be forced to pick up the financial slack.

“More to the point, how can we say we’re preparing Kiwi students for success on the world stage when the world looks at our universities and says, ‘why bother’?

"Yesterday at select committee I questioned Universities NZ about this. They excused the drop as a ‘blip’ caused by COVID-19. I don’t think that excuse is good enough – universities have had years to reset after the pandemic. Nor do I think universities can rely just on promotional programmes to restore their international reputations. The actual educational offering needs to improve.

“What is clear to me, and to ACT, is that universities will not become internationally relevant by continuing down an inward-looking, Te Tiriti-centric path that wraps every student and lecturer in a thicket of matauranga Māori and a narrow view of New Zealand history.

“Every university should learn from the debacle at the University of Auckland, where students were forced to take ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ papers, and are now denied compensation even as the university realises it stuffed up. International students who had their time and money wasted will now be telling their international peers about their experience. This is disastrous for our university sector’s international reputation.”

Editor’s note:

ACT is gathering signatures on a petition to give financial credit to University of Auckland students affected by compulsory WTR papers.

An explanation of the 'International Outlook' metric can be found here: World University Rankings 2026: methodology explained

Individual university scores:
University of Auckland | World University Rankings | THE
Victoria University of Wellington | World University Rankings | THE
University of Otago | World University Rankings | THE
University of Canterbury | World University Rankings | THE
Auckland University of Technology | World University Rankings | THE
University of Waikato | World University Rankings | THE
Massey University | World University Rankings | THE
Lincoln University (New Zealand) | World University Rankings | THE
Navigate to the graph and click 'International Outlook'.