New research details the extent of racism, othering and tokenism faced by Māori and Pacific postgraduate students in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The paper, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, was based off responses of 43 Māori and Pacific students in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) subjects.

Many of the respondents detailed being made to feel out of place, having their place at university questioned, or being made a token representative for funding applications.

In one instance, one Māori student’s name was added to a funding application by the faculty despite them expressly saying “no”.

“My name (my mana and reputation) was used against my will to secure funding for a project that I refused multiple times to be part of,” one participant said.

Lead researcher Dr Tara McAllister of the University of Auckland told RNZ Nine to Noon there were a lot of shocking stories.

“Every time I read people’s responses to the question I had to kind of mentally prepare myself for reading, you know, really horrific experiences of racism and all the kind of other things that go with that,” she said.

Students felt alienated
The survey results pointed to students who often felt alienated by the assumptions of colleagues, or isolated as the only Māori or Pacific student in the building; students whose very place in the university was often questioned.

“Sometimes … people make comments that we are only where we are because we are Pacific people,” another participant said.

Māori and Pacific academics make up less than 5 percent and 2 percent respectively of all academics.

To combat this, many universities have been trying to increase the number of Māori and Pacific students in the institutions.

But another of the researchers, Dr Sereana Naepi, said that would do little to keep those students in academia, and the very structure of the academy needed to change to be more culturally accommodating.

“We haven’t taken on the structures that make people leave the system and so that’s really what we’re talking about: how do these different experiences help us to understand how the structures at play make Māori and Pacific choose not to enter the academy or enter the research workforce,” she said.

Dr McAllister said many rangatahi surveyed said they felt alone and isolated, but all the responses showed that their experiences were not isolated.

“I hope they read our paper and feel less isolated knowing that we’re doing this work to try and change things and knowing their negative experience may have been less isolated.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The new vice-chancellor of the Auckland University of Technology is calling on young Pasifika peoples pursuing their education to stay the course.

Toeolesulusulu Dr Damon Salesa, who is currently a pro vice-chancellor at the University of Auckland takes up his new role at AUT in March.

He is the first person of Pacific descent to head a university in New Zealand.

Toeolesulusulu said the past two years of the covid-19 pandemic have been the most difficult for education in a long time.

He said part of the reason he chose to take up the new role was that AUT provides a pathway to education for people of all ages, backgrounds and races, regardless of the life stage or academic credentials.

“The pressures of the pandemic have forced many young people to have to choose between furthering their education or providing for their families, and institutions like AUT can help.

“Now is a great time to just leave school and get a job,” Toeolesulusulu said.

“But in terms of the future that students’ families need, that our city and our communities need, education still remains the single most powerful way to transform the lives of you and your family and through them our communities.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Pacific Studies” has been included in a raft of new proposed NCEA achievement standard subjects in New Zealand, now up for public consultation. It is proposed with Vagahau Niue and Gagana Tokelau as part of the government’s NCEA upcoming reforms — the biggest shakeup of the qualification.

The option of learning Pasifika histories has provided hope to students like i-Kiribati Naumi Teinabo (Maiana, Nikunau), who has never learnt a Pacific strand once in her social studies classes.

The Mahurangi College Year 13 who only this year started learning about New Zealand histories, said the social studies curriculum has not served Pasifika learners.

Auckland University Pacific studies scholar Hollyanna Ainea said: “It comes into a loss, sort of like identity, in like our place as Pasifika in New Zealand. So we’re focusing on more European history and stuff instead of what’s actually important to us.”

She said learning about the Mau movement in Year 12 helped form her identity as a tama’ita’i Samoa – that would later challenge an older, white male-dominated space in academia.

But she said should Pacific studies be offered in New Zealand schools, that teachers must be culturally competent.

“It also comes down to the different resources that teachers are offered as well because you know, they’re already time restricted and they’re also having to find different ways to educate students on different topics,” she said.

Willingness to research
“But it also comes down to their willingness to research and know how to handle these different conversations regarding Pasifika history, Māori history.

“There’s this massive disconnection between understanding how we as tagata o le moana or tagata o le whenua, perceive our oral histories, our connections with the land, connections with the sea and that also kind of contributes to our ignorance to how these different inequities have come about over time because even though these are events that have happened in the past, they still affect us today.”

Ainea said all students who enrolled in Pacific studies would use the learning everywhere they go, with everyone, every day.

She said Pasifika students would especially benefit from a subject that helped them grow in their identity.

Ben Curtis is a history teacher at De La Salle College with a predominantly Pasifika school roll.

He admitted as a Palagi man, his teaching was not founded in lived experience. However, he had only ever taught Māori and Pasifika topics, which he said was received better by his predominantly Pasifika students.

He said topics like the Dawn Raids and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, had been important in reminding students of where and who they come from.

Engagement of young people
“The engagement of young people when they learn about Māori history through a Māori context and worldview is a lot more powerful than learning history that’s really disconnected with any cultural identity that you know, New Zealanders have, and particularly Māori and Pacific students.”

With the help of some teachers, Teinabo recently began lunchtime tutorials for Pasifika students with a yearning to learn about their heritage.

The tutorials have proved a hit with small Pasifika student community. So far, they’ve discussed the destruction of Banaba and the Mau.

Teinabo said she would tell her Year 9-self that being i-Kiribati was nothing short of beautiful and was something to share with her classmates.

“Just remember myself as I am is enough… I should be able to appreciate and want to want to show my culture and be strong in my culture’.”

Pacific studies along with Vagahau Niue and Gagana Tokelau, are a number of proposed new subjects which form the government’s NCEA reform, the biggest shakeup of the qualification since it began in 2002.

Ākonga, kaiako and extended whānau can provide feedback through an online survey, which closes on August 11.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Help with living costs while studying and extra support for mental health are two areas Pacific tertiary students want given more attention with the New Zealand general election.

Universities NZ figures show there were 10,000 full-time Pasifika students enrolled in May, an increase of 35 percent since 2010.

The last two national budgets have committed $107.6 million to help Pacific communities over the next 30 years, but tertiary students say there are urgent needs that must be addressed.

“The first one is mental health and well-being,” according to Leilani Vae’au, while for Ali Leota “one thing for sure is introducing a universal education income”.

Vae’au is at Wellington’s Victoria University working towards a bachelor degree in political science, international relations and religious studies.

She is also on the university’s Pasifika student council.

The 20-year-old is not eligible for student allowance to help with living expenses because her parents earn over the threshold. Student allowance begins to drop once parents earn beyond $56,888.52 a year before tax. If parents jointly earn $98,653.52 or more the student is ineligible.

‘Three younger siblings’
“But I have three younger siblings under me who depend on that and other family members who depend on my parents,” Vae’au explained.

“And I can’t get that aid so that I don’t have to work all the shifts I work to be able to study and focus on that because of the fact my parents make money to support my family.”

Instead, she meets her living costs working multiple office shifts, which she balances with full-time study, student council commitments and a busy home life.

During the Level 4 lockdown she was relieved to keep her job, but from home when her bedroom became her office, living room and study. The lines blurred between study, work and family life.

“Over covid, I didn’t have the opportunity to compartmentalise my house which has six people living in it and a hundred different Zoom calls going on at the same time.”

Vae’au found the inability to separate these aspects of life particularly challenging.

“As a child of the Pacific or as a child in a multi-generational home, as the eldest child as well, there are lot of factors that were still impacting mental health-wise and just stability-wise in the home environment.”

University difficult to navigate
Fellow Vic student Rosina Buchanan is a self-described “queer non-binary person of colour with a disability”.

The Bachelor of Health student has found university difficult to navigate without adequate mental health support and would like to see greater equity when meeting the challenges campus life presents.

“Because I would encounter quite a bit of ableism, elitism, classism, homophobia, being misgendered, racism, and that is definitely a lot of barriers to being able to thrive.”

For Ali Leota, the national president of the Pacific student body Tauira Pasifika, financial support is key.

“One thing for sure is introducing a universal education income” he said, challenging the government to help provide a hand up to provide Pasifika students with a level playing field.

“The public health major would like to see student allowance eligibility reconfigured in a way that’s fairer to Pacific families, as the parental income threshold doesn’t adequately take into account the number of dependants.

“And coming from a big family, we’re kind of victims of that,” Leota says.

Universal education income
“So therefore, implementing a universal education income is a way to pave the way forward to making tertiary education accessible and fit for purpose for our Pacific learners.”

Post-graduate students should also be included in the ‘universal education income’ according to Leota, who pointed out the incumbent government had failed to reinstate their financial backing which he said was a barrier to Pasifika achieving masters and doctoral success.

It is also a barrier to Pasifika moving into academia.

“Do they go to work or do they continue to study?” Leota says.

“Of course nine times out of 10 our Pasifika students will opt to work to go and help support families but a universal education income will enable our students to climb up the ladder and make our tertiary spaces a space where we feel like we’re welcomed.”

Leota says Pasifika people are underrepresented in academia, even in Pacific studies, and pointed to studies by Dr Sereana Naepi and Dr Tara McAllister who asked Why isn’t my professor Pasifika?

The incumbent government has committed to “confronting systematic racism and discrimination in education” as part of its five point action plan to support Pacific learners.

More student body support
University of Auckland law student Shaneel Lal says they can help address it immediately by offering more support to Pacific student bodies which in turn provide support to students.

Lal’s family moved from Fiji when he was 14 and he attended Auckland’s Ōtāhuhu College where his hard work was recognised, being named school Dux. The Youth Parliament 2019 MP who represented Jenny Salesa said he had difficulty transitioning from the strong Pasifika and Māori-dominated culture of high school to the University of Auckland.

“I went from a very collectivist community to a very individualist community where I went from being a person to a number, and nothing really prepares a young Pacific person for that transition.”

The 20-year-old said he was overwhelmed with the culture shock at the time and dropped out. Although he is back at university, he would like more attention paid by tertiary institutions to learning priorities and styles from this part of the world.

“For example, Māori communities are underpinned by the fundamental principles of whanaungatanga and we have similar concepts in our Pacific communities that we exist as a community,” said Lal.

“That is missing at university. University is about competing rather than collaborating and working together.”

While Labour has released a five-point action plan to improve things for Pacific students, including “to respond to unmet needs, with an initial focus on needs arising from the covid-19 pandemic”, other parties lack university specific education policy for Pasifika.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz