Teaching and Learning for Success for Māori in Tertiary Settings

E mihi kau ana ki ngā tāngata katoa, i whakawhiti kōrero ki ā maua mō tēnei kaupapa whakahirahira.

Ki ngā kaipnui o tēnei mahi rangahau, ko te tumanako ka kitea, ka rangona, he kōrero, he tikanga rangahau, he tauira pai hoki kua whārikihia nei e ngā kaikōrero maha, hei whakawhiti ki āu mahi rangahau, āu mahi whakaako, te tautoko rānei i ngā ākonga Māori. Kia eke panuku ki ngā taumata o te mātauranga!

Introduction

Purpose, content, and methodological approach

The aim of this study is to investigate tauira, exemplars, of success for Māori in tertiary education.

Much previous research about Māori achievement in education, both tertiary and the school sector, has focused on the under-achievement of Māori, highlighting a gap between what is achieved by the population as a whole and what is achieved by Māori.¹

While this may be a current reality, for it to change we need to know more about what success is like from a Māori point of view, and what factors promote it. This study, therefore, has selected four programmes, in different parts of New Zealand and in different kinds of institutions, that are seen to be largely successful by students, by the Māori community, and by the institution itself. We have worked with the participants to identify what makes the programmes successful.

In this document we report these elements in terms of five overarching principles:

• toko ā-iwi, ā-wānanga, institutional and iwi support;
• tikanga, the integration of Māori, and iwi, values and protocols;
• pūkenga, the involvement of suitably qualified leadership and staff;
• ako, development of effective teaching and learning strategies; and
• huakina te tatau o te whare, opening up the doors to the house.

We then consider a number of implications these elements have for a Māori approach to tertiary education.

Because the quantification of success in terms of enrolment, retention and completion is already addressed in each institution’s reporting documents, we here examine its qualitative aspects: the complex attitudes, policies and practices that operate to bring it about.

Ko tā te rangatira kai, he kōrero: the food of chiefs is talk

Put another way, dialogue and collaboration are means to promote well-being and development. Accordingly our approach was a participatory one. In each site we interviewed administrative leadership, teaching staff, students, and members of iwi, community groups and wider institutional documents: charters, strategic plans, accreditation and programme documents, media files. The result was a woven whäriki of perceptions, descriptions and discussion.

Co-investigation and co-construction of narrative allow participants to not only have a voice in the research but also to exercise rangatiratanga about the work, its purposes and its outcomes. Such an approach aligns comfortably with Māori cultural perspectives, and allows the research to be used for Mäori development, and not only to reinforce the power of the mainstream. A recognition of the values that underpin Mäori approaches to community, to knowledge, and to learning and teaching as well as of western ones are fundamental to the design of the study.

1 - A survey of existing literature, a full description of the methodology, and a summary of each studied institution’s reports may be found in our full report of this project: Hei tauira: Teaching and Learning for Success for Mäori in Tertiary Settings: www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/heitauira

Researchers - Janinka Greenwood & Lynne-Harata Te Aika, College of Education, University of Canterbury

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