He Vaka Moana: Navigating the success of Maori & Pasifika students
Status
Completed: 12 May 2021
Project Details
A two-year long project using an Oceanic methodology to investigate Māori and Pasifika student success and retention. A collaboration between University of Auckland and UNITEC.
Aims:
The primary aim of the project was to examine existing practices and develop innovative ways to advance the success of Māori and Pasifika students in higher education.
Methodology:
The project used an Oceanic methodology (also called the Vaka methodology), a methodology that prioritises and values indigenous knowledge. It will also support research fellows to regularly come together to share ideas and resources and gain knowledge from other ‘navigators’.
Team
Dr Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki
Co-principal investigator
University of Auckland
Dr Hinekura Smith
Co-principal investigator
University of AucklandStatus
Funding
$307,123.00 (excl GST)
Key Findings
- Higher Education in Aotearoa New Zealand requires a renewed and active commitment to increased Māori and Pasifika success. Such a conclusion is not new, yet it is important that it is reiterated here as little has changed in the past 20 years.
What is new perhaps is the call for these initiatives to be Māori and Pasifika led, drawing on our knowledges, languages and ways of being. He Vaka Moana in this sense is a ‘new’ ‘old’ offering that seeks a way for us to work together in productive and self-sovereigning ways. For Māori and Pasifika led programmes that support Māori and Pasifika student success in higher education to be sustainable, there must be greater institutional commitment of time, workload and resources. - Māori and Pasifika staff in higher education are underrepresented and overworked, leaving little time to come together to talk, create, research and teach—to pikipiki hama—in meaningful and productive ways to support solutions within our individual, diverse, heterogenous cultural knowledges and spaces. Nurturing the vā, having time to wānanga and strengthen those relationships that bind us as people of the Moana are vital to addressing both the retention and work satisfaction of Māori and Pasifika staff and the success of Māori and Pasifika students in higher education.
- A genuine commitment to shift attitudes and change hearts and minds takes time and is not a short-term fix. Instead, Māori and Pasifika led programmes to support Māori and Pasifika student success must be formalized and made sustainable by committing to professional and academic development on teaching learning and research to create transformational change.
Key Recommendations
- An increased national and institutional commitment to Māori and Pasifika led programmes for Māori and Pasifika student success, including a significant increase of Māori and Pasifika staffing appointments and workload recognition of Māori and Pasifika contributions and research.
- Recognise and support time for Māori and Pasifika staff (separately and together), to wānanga/meet/talanoa to create solutions from within Māori and Pasifika ways of being.
- Formalize sustainable work roles, resourcing and research funds to match the policy rhetoric of Māori and Pasifika student success at institutional and national levels.
A strengths-based project framed by Oceanic principles and methodologies, the team drew from their shared history of their tūpuna who navigated the vast Pacific Ocean. Based on an internationally proven model, He Vaka Moana sought to develop a sustainable, interdisciplinary fellowship for teaching, learning, assessment and research.
- 12 May 2021