Increasing number of first year students enrolled at UC

Increasing number of first year students enrolled at UC for 2014

March 11, 2014

University of Canterbury Vice-Chancellor Dr Rod Carr says an increase in first-year student enrolments for 2014 shows the University is on track for future growth.

Dr Carr says almost 10,900 equivalent full-time domestic and international students have enrolled to study in 2014, almost as many as last year.

Most encouraging is new equivalent full-time student numbers which total 2712, up about three percent on last year, while first year international equivalent full-time student numbers are up 18 percent.

He says since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes the University has made a significant commitment to recruiting students. This work will continue.

``I’m delighted with the number of new students enrolled this year. This is really promising. We have always known that rebuilding student numbers would not be a one-year project and further efforts will be required in this area as we strive toward our first post-quake surplus by the end of 2017.

``We said during the recent enrolment period that we were hopeful first-year student numbers would show no further decline, and that has indeed been the case.

``I would like to acknowledge the significant efforts of our staff in helping the University reach this achievement.”

The overall numbers are largely in line with budget expectations and the University is committed to providing students with world-class learning opportunities.

There has been some decline in returning students in line with expectations, as the impact of the 2011 earthquakes on student numbers continues to impact on the size of the cohort of students doing four-year degrees.

Dr Carr says the University’s recovery strategy is based on a vision of the University being better than it had been pre-earthquakes.

``We have jumped to 19th in the world in Civil and Structural Engineering in the latest QS world university rankings and we feature among the world's elite (top 200) universities in 16 subjects in this year's rankings of 3000 universities.’’

A feature of the 2014 enrolments shows first-time engineering students up 14 percent, which is a record all-time high for the University.

New courses also show substantial interest with more than 100 students enrolled in the new criminal justice degree and more than 20 students in the postgraduate health sciences’ nursing degree.

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