Covid-19 has wrought big change in Auckland’s city centre. With international students and foreign workers nowhere to be seen, concerns are mounting that it’s becoming a crime-ridden ghost town. But amid the darkness are glimmers of hope. Stuff explores the future of downtown Auckland.
When Pawan Dhakal enrolled to study civil engineering at the University of Auckland, he did not expect to spend the bulk of his degree learning from his central city flat.
But that is exactly what happened to the international student from Nepal, who finished the penultimate year in 2021.
The third year is among the toughest periods of the qualification.
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Students usually face a gruelling combination of theoretical study and practical work in laboratories and the field.
Dhakal, who is paying $48,000 a year for his degree, has been learning his craft largely online for the past two years.
For courses like quantity surveying, students had hardly any field work at all.
“For the last two years, because of Covid, it hasn’t really felt like I’ve been at uni,” he said. “It’s been more like a YouTube learning experience.”
Jason Dorday/Stuff
The character of Symonds St has changed with fewer students on site from AUT and the University of Auckland, those working and living in the area say.
He said it was disappointing to miss out on many of the practical aspects of the degree.
“We don’t really get exposure to the equipment, procedures, or the actual learning aspect of it.”
Added to that is the problem of internships. Engineering degrees require about 800 hours of practical work, usually meaning two summer internships.
JASON DORDAY/STUFF/Stuff
The number of international students at AUT has fallen by half.
But international students find it much more difficult to secure those internships because companies are more reluctant to take them.
And if the students come to the end of their four-year degree without having completed their internships, they can run into visa issues and face having to leave the country before they’ve got their degree.
This summer, Dhakal, who has a good grade point average, has secured an internship in Wellington, and will be able to get his degree after the university reduced the amount of internship hours required.
Many people he knows were not so lucky.
Jason Dorday/Stuff
There has been less life east of Queen St in the city as many students engaged in distance learning during the pandemic.
The reduction in the number of international students due to Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the financial health of the University of Auckland and AUT up the road.
It’s also had a knock-on effect on the atmosphere of the city and the character of Auckland’s student quarter, those who live and work in the area say.
AUT and Auckland University both lie just east of Queen St, on the hillside running along Symonds St from the leafy surrounds of the Auckland High Court up to Karangahape Rd.
Jason Dorday/Stuff
AUT’s city campus near Auckland’s Queen Street.
In 2019, the area was bustling with hordes of young people who lived and studied in the area, giving the precinct something of the feel of a student town.
Over the next two years with the advent of the city’s multiple lockdowns, Symonds St and its surrounds transformed into a relative ghost town.
Into the place of the international students who populated surrounding apartments came an increasing number of people in emergency or transitional housing.
Shop owners nearby said the character of the area changed dramatically. They say they have experienced a huge reduction in custom and an increase in break-ins and violence.
RICKY WILSON/Stuff
AUT vice-chancellor Derek McCormack says international student numbers have dropped by half, depriving his institution of millions.
Long-serving AUT vice-chancellor Derek McCormack, who will depart the role early in 2022, is frank when asked about the changing nature of the city around the universities.
“I think what’s happened is a lot of that accommodation that was used by international students has now been taken up with social housing,” he said.
“So you’ve got a different sort of community in the city and I don’t think the CBD is set up for that.
“And it hasn’t made it a great place to be, particularly in that north end around Wakefield St down into Grafton,” he said. “I think that’s a big issue for the city.”
The absence of significant numbers of international students also deprives AUT and other institutions of millions of dollars in revenue.
Since 2020, when AUT lost 300 international students, there has been a further reduction of 600 internationals.
A loss of another 600 international students was expected again in 2022 because of a lack of new students starting.
In 2020, AUT had about 3000 international students, which will have fallen to about 1500 by 2022, McCormack said.
He said domestic student numbers rose 500 this year and were estimated to rise by about 300 in 2022.
“But of course, we only get half the income for domestic students as we get for an international.”
RICKY WILSON
Derek McCormack has suggested the Government should give more priority to international students.
Three hundred more domestic students gives AUT another $5 million, but a reduction of 600 international students loses the institution $22 million, he said.
The upshot was more cost-cutting was required, and AUT would have to reduce the surplus it uses to invest in capital, equipment and services.
“It’s given us an opportunity to look at all the courses, and some of them that are not highly subscribed we will probably be dropping,” McCormack said.
“We’ll probably have to reduce some services and increase class sizes. So we have to suck up our costs somewhere and reduce our surplus.”
AUT was not currently looking at layoffs, McCormack said. “We’re looking at maintaining the staffing we’ve got.”
CATHERINE REISS/Stuff
The University of Auckland says many of its international students are still studying remotely from overseas.
An Auckland University spokeswoman said no one was available to be interviewed for this story.
In a statement, the university said its international enrolments were “nearly back to pre-Covid levels” but half of those students were still studying online offshore.
McCormack said he wanted to see the Government give more priority to international students, and more clarity about when they could return.
He said some of the university’s halls were ideal for self-isolation, and students could study while they isolated.
“When we’re looking at immigration plans, students always seem to be at the bottom of the heap,” McCormack said.
“International students bring in huge instant cash into the economy.
“If you just looked at the Auckland universities alone, just in direct cash, not with any multiplier, they bring in for tuition and accommodation nearly $600m a year.
“That’s a huge injection into the Auckland economy … And a huge injection into the culture and the community in the central city.”
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