Wellington, Oct 6 NZPA - Complaints about private training outlets dominate those received by New Zealand's International Education Appeal Authority from foreign students.

The IEAA has had a code of practice for the pastoral care of international students in New Zealand since October 2002.

From then to the end of 2007 it received 346 complaints from students, with 211 relating to private training establishments.

Complaints in the last year were made by students from Korea, India, China, Japan, Pakistan, Thailand, Tahiti, Indonesia, Canada, Czech Republic and Germany.

Marilyn Wallace from the IEAA said issues that arose repeatedly included the failure of providers to: supply timely and accurate information; to assess whether a course was appropriate for students; and to act fairly and reasonably in their financial dealings with students.

"Less often but no less important have been issues relating to expulsion, homestay and pastoral care."

Ms Wallace said many private training establishments provided excellent facilities and teachers and had good systems for dealing with their international students. But others did not.

"Greater efforts are needed to bring these providers up to standard. The failings of one sector has the potential to have an adverse impact on the rest of the export education sector."

Most providers were conscientious in their efforts to the code's guidelines, she said.

Robert Stevens, chief executive of Education New Zealand, said 99.92 percent of international students got what they sought.

"New Zealand has arguably the world's most stringent legislative requirements around the care of international students," he said.

The IEAA provided further protection for students and was an extra step most countries failed to provide.

Most of the cases taken to the IEAA covered technical provisions of the code and not student safety, he said.

Education NZ is a non-profit charitable trust and the main industry body for education exporters in New Zealand.

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