Backlog of New Zealand student visa cleared by New Zealand immigration

New Zealand, 12th August: New Zealand immigration department has finally cleared the longstanding backlog of applications for New Zealand student visas.

While announcing this, the New Zealand immigration has also sought apologies from the international education industry for causing undue delays in the application processing of large number of New Zealand student visas.

The delay had resulted in long waiting for the processing of New Zealand student visas for foreign students. As per the official report, there had been delays spanning as long as five months and with no correspondence from the New Zealand immigration department regarding the reason for such delays in the processing. This had naturally added to the woes of the worried applicants waiting for their student visa applications to be processed.

Accepting its role in delays in the New Zealand student visa application process, the New Zealand immigration department has stated that the backlog was not good in any ways. It also reiterated that it is taking all steps to make sure that such thing does not repeat in the near future.

A backlog of as much as 5,500 applications for New Zealand student visas had occurred and that was an issue of serious concern for the New Zealand immigration department, said Nigel Bickle, head of the New Zealand immigration department. 

Speaking about the assurance given to Jonathan Coleman, the New Zealand immigration minister, regarding the backlog to be cleared by the end of July 2010, Mr. Bickle said the target has been achieved nearly because only 200 applications have been left to be processed out of the total 5,500 applications in the backlog in the beginning of July this year. 

The reasons which had caused long delays in the New Zealand student visa applications include poor planning coupled with two peak periods during which there has been a heavy rush of applications for New Zealand student visas.

Immigration New Zealand has also given assurance to the New Zealand immigration minister that the department will work up a plan by the month of September this year to make the processing more fast and efficient, Mr. Bickle asserted.