The Engagement of Māori and

Pasifika Students at ITPs:

Sharing Good Practice

Dr Jerry Hoffman

Dr Jo Whittle

Dr Sally Bodkin-Allen

Lecturers at the Southern Institute of Technology

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Authors

Dr Jerry Hoffman: Jerry is involved as a Learning Assistance

lecturer and also teaches a research methodology paper for the

Postgraduate Diploma in Businesses Enterprise. He is the

Academic Leader for that programme and the Senior Editor for

the Southern Institute of Technology Journal of Applied

Research. Jerry received his PhD in Education from the

University of Otago in 2002. He has taught in the tertiary

sector for the past 23 years and has a particular interest in

the teaching and learning fields with a specific focus on

student engagement. Jerry is one of the authors of the

Committed Learners Project.

Dr Jo Whittle: As the Research Assistant at SIT, Jo Whittle is

involved in a diverse range of projects relating to tertiary

teaching and learning. Her role is to support of staff

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research across the institute, and to foster collaborative

projects with the local and regional community. Jo has a PhD

in environmental history from the University of Auckland. For

the last two years she taught a paper on conservation

management as part of the Environmental Management

undergraduate degree programme.

Dr Sally Bodkin-Allen: Sally is the Research Manager at SIT

and also the Academic Leader for the Bachelor of Contemporary

Music and Bachelor of Audio Production degrees. She has a PhD

in early childhood music education from the University of

Otago, and her research interests lie in that area, as well as

music and sport, and student engagement. She is a member of

the MENZA (Music Education New Zealand Aotearoa) Board and in

her role as Research Manager has worked on projects ranging

from the Committed Learners Project, to Parenting in

Southland, and an Evaluation of the SwimSafe Programme.

Abstract

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The engagement of Māori and Pasifika students in relation to

retention and progression in tertiary institutions has been an

important factor at a national level for a number of years

(Harrison, Marshall & Beckham, 2009; Ross, n.d.). This paper

reports some of findings of the Committed Learners Project

(CLP) a two- study to share good practice among institutes of

technology and polytechnics around student engagement and

retention. One of the major strands of the CLP related to the

engagement of Māori and Pasifika students in tertiary

institutions. Specific areas of focus included level of

awareness among teaching staff about the engagement of Māori

and Pasifika students in the classroom; the role of support

staff in the engagement of Māori and Pasifika students and

methods of fostering belonging and a sense of place. This

paper highlights current good practice while concluding that

application is uneven. It recommends approaches that

institutions can take to assist Māori and Pasifika students to

participate and achieve at a tertiary level.

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The Engagement of Māori and Pasifika Students at ITPs: Sharing

Good Practice

“It’s amazing how many things are the same but just explained

differently. What we’re doing is giving strength to any individual’s own

culture. And when you have strength in your own culture you’re more

accepting of others. But you need your strength first and we recognise it;

that’s how we help promote Māori culture. We make sure that everyone’s

culture is strong to them.” Quote from ITP tutor.

Introduction

Participation, retention and progression of Māori and Pasifika

students have long been issues of specific attention among

tertiary educators. This paper documents a range of ways in

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which this attention manifests in practice among a number of

New Zealand Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs).

The information is drawn directly from the Committed Learners

Project (CLP), a collaborative research project to identify

practices to foster student engagement, improve student

retention and enhance successful completion of programmes.

The project brought together a ‘basket’ of good practice

examples gathered from ITPs around Aotearoa/New Zealand in

2010-2011.

The CLP was motivated in part in response to current

government policy that links a proportion of government

funding for tertiary providers to student educational

performance. From 2012 a maximum of five per cent of a

tertiary provider’s tuition funding will be at risk each year,

based on its performance the previous year against educational

performance indicators of qualification and course completion

rates, retention and progression (Tertiary Education

Commission, 2012). The project was based on the assumption

that tertiary providers themselves can make a major impact on

student commitment to learning.

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Māori and Pasifika students have been two under-represented

groups in tertiary study, and traditionally the focus has been

on encouraging enrolment in programmes (Benseman, Coxon,

Anderson & Anae, 2006). More recently, however, as Benseman et

al. note, there has been more attention paid to factors which

increase completion of courses of study, as well as those

factors which can impede retention. Participation, retention

and progression of Māori learners in tertiary study are

important concerns on a national level (Harrison, Marshall &

Beckham, 2009). Despite growth in the number of Māori and

Pasfika students enrolling in tertiary study, engagement and

retention continue to be problematic (Ross, n.d.). While it

is important to acknowledge that Māori and Pasifika students

are two distinct groups, here they are considered together.

This has a precedent in the literature (Ross, n.d.).

The project involved three phases: a review of the literature

relating to student engagement; a questionnaire distributed to

a variety of staff employed at ITPs, including those in

administrative and management roles; and interviews with

teaching staff and those involved in learning support. One

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hundred and forty-three questionnaires were returned from nine

ITPs, and thirty-nine interviews were carried out at six ITPs.

The thirty-nine interview participants represented both

genders and include teaching staff across a variety of

programmes and levels, from certificate through to higher

level degree teaching. One limitation of this study is that it

did not seek demographic information from the participants,

however, 15% of the interview participants did self-identify

as Māori with none self-identifying as Pasifika during the

course of the interviews. It was not a primary aim of the

study to focus on teaching and learning for Māori or Pasifika

students, but rather this became an emergent theme during the

analysis of the data. The authors acknowledge that, as with

most qualitative research, a different group of participants

may have produced different themes and issues.

This paper outlines the findings of the CLP in relation to the

engagement of Māori and Pasifika students. It examines:

awareness of teaching and learning issues for Māori and

Pasifika students among teaching staff;8

good teaching practice around the engagement of Māori and

Pasifika students in the classroom;

the role of support staff in the engagement of Māori and

Pasifika students, and

fostering belonging and a sense of place.

Ethical approval for this study was granted by the SIT Human

Research Ethics Committee. All participants were provided

with an information sheet giving details about the study.

Participants were assured of their anonymity and that neither

they nor the institute that they were representing would be

identifiable in any presentation of the data.

Data from the questionnaires and interviews is presented here

in the form of a series of anonymous quotations, in the blue

shaded text, or in text boxes. Quotations have been amended

for clarity of meaning and to preserve anonymity where

necessary. The chosen quotations reflect the general tenor of

most of the interviews and highlight both good practice as

carried out at ITPs and issues around lack of knowledge or

guidance on supporting Māori and Pasifika students.

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Awareness among teaching staff

Some of the teaching staff interviewed showed understanding

and recognition of Māori and Pasifika cultures within their

teaching, and they incorporated relevant content within the

structure of courses they taught.

We have quite a strong area in our programme for the Treaty and bilingualism is

part of the early childhood curriculum, so the students do have to learn quite a bit.

But I find that we don’t get a lot of Māori or Pasifika students through. Even though

we recognise Māori students, or I do, as being special and they are recognised as

tangata whenua, we don’t do anything specifically for them, but I certainly have a

commitment to teaching things as part of the programme. I say that our children

should be learning some of these things.

For our programme, the tikanga that we implement is that we start with the karakia;

that’s come from the local iwi here and our local kuia. The kuia who does the

karanga, or the calling on when we have powhiri at the beginning of each semester,

she’s the one that advises me on what kind of things I should implement in the

programme. So that’s linking back to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and making sure that I’m

making connections to the local iwi to guide my practice.

Many of my students are Pacific Island students, and one of the unit standards in the

national certificate is a Pacific Island unit standard. So I’m sensitive to the kind of 10

things that those students find important and it’s important in my conversations

with them to mention their families, it’s important to acknowledge that many of

them bring quite a strong spiritual base to their learning. I try to be sensitive and

respectful of that; if they want to say a little prayer at the end of our conversation

then that’s ok.

Most teaching staff acknowledged that some understanding or

awareness of Māori culture was a part of teaching at a

tertiary level:

My philosophy of the classroom has been influenced from my study in relation to the

Māori culture and what we have been exposed to. I think as a tutor you need a little

bit of awareness or background of the culture.

The following participant recognised that Māori are a diverse

group:

What I see is there is a huge diversity. I can’t really say that there is one method for

encouraging Māori to learn. I have some of these old school Māori, that’s what they

call themselves, who strongly believe Māori are visual learners and that’s how they

are and that will never change and we are born with that. They have this essential

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belief in these things. And I have some who would easily be the opposite and they

say, ‘visual learning’s not my thing’. To me they are such a diversity of people, when

I look at the Māori people, that I can’t really say there’s a specific way of

encouraging Māori to learn.

The comments of other participants suggested that they

questioned why Māori and Pasifika students should be regarded

as any different from the wider student body. A common

response was that they treated everyone the same in their

classroom:

There’s not really anything special done for Māori and Pasifika students, it’s just ‘this

is us, this is the big picture’.

We sort of talked about that and the belief out there amongst our tutors is that once

they come into our class, they’re part of the team. Unless a student specifically

requires it, and to be honest generally they don’t. Everyone’s just treated the same:

women, men, race, creed, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t feel that people need to be treated any differently. All the students are given

a lot of help in my level five course to engage with the online campus page.

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Some expressed

uncertainty about what

it was that they

should be doing to

engage Māori and Pasifika students:

Most of my Māori students tend to come into my class and get treated like everyone

else and kind of wander off. To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure what we’re

supposed to do differently. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do. I’ve sat down

and thought about this for a while and yarned away with a few other tutors. We’ve

sort of thought: do we start class with a karakia? Does that help, does it not? I’m

not sure. Everyone runs round and says you’ve got to do the engagement bit, but no

one ever actually tells you how.

There was a great deal of variety of responses from the

participants when they were asked about the engagement of

Māori and Pasifika students. While the government’s strategic

tertiary policy remains focused on increasing Māori and

Pasifika student participation and achievement at a tertiary

level (Ministry of Education, 2010) there appears still to be

confusion over issues regarding biculturalism and the

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Even though we’re a bicultural institutionhere, no-one knows what the hell that

means.

engagement of Māori and Pasifika students in the tertiary

learning environment.

Engaging Māori and Pasifika students in the classroom

A recent study by Hall (2011) of a group of non-Māori

university lecturers who had found successful ways to

incorporate Māori content into their teaching suggests

practical ways of creating a learning environment that are

culturally safe and supported. Hall’s participants put

forward a number of ideas including the importance of

positioning yourself honestly “don’t try to give a Māori point

of view if you aren’t Māori” (p.71) but at the same time

presenting and showing respect for a Māori viewpoint (p.72) ;

taking informal or formal training (such as a Māori language

course, spending time on marae, or being mentored by a Māori

colleague), and proactively including Māori examples in course

content (for example taking students to a marae for a field

trip and referring to Māori historical events, people and

scenarios) (p.73). Some of Hall’s interviewees talked about

actively modelling tikanga Māori (Māori customary practices)

such as not sitting on tables, sharing kai (food), and ending

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the course with a poroporoaki (an opportunity for students to

say good bye and thanks) (p.73). Similar ideas were put

forward by some participants of the CLP:

As part of the communications paper, I do a series of tikanga Māori classes and one

of the things I do is get them to do the assignment, basically do their introduction.

They don’t have to do it in te reo; they can do it in English but I get them to try a bit

of te reo. Get some connection there. I’ve done

it for the last three years. I find it really

connects the Māori and Pacific Island students.

Like we might finish a run or something like

that and there’s Jake at the end of it - he’s our

cultural advisor - and he’ll talk to us about a

Māori concept like pushing yourself or working

together (manaakitanga). We are very

conscious of it. They do a unit in tikanga and

it’s about just kind of firing it in where we can.

Having a more open setting; a more interactive,

less formal setting; a more social setting. And

what we’ll do is put our tables in a circle or a square so everyone faces each other, so

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Good practice hints from ITP tutors:

o Pronounce Māori and Pasifika names correctly: check the pronunciation with students

o Start courses with amihimihi (introduction)both from teaching staff and students

o Observe Māori tikanga in the learning environment, avoid sittingon tables, touching heads etc

o Incorporate Māori terminology and

it becomes much less formal and Western-directed. Things like that are what we’re

trying to do. We incorporate the Noho Marae. We have a lot of Māori content

embedded into our courses as well, and all our art history courses to make it

relevant to the culture. So those are things we do just in our department.

Having a Noho Marae needs to be acknowledged here. It was

mentioned by several participants as being a particularly

significant element of their programme. A recent study by

Greenhalgh, Walker, Tipa-Rogers and Hunter found that Noho

Marae provided Māori students with “a sense of pride and an

opportunity to enhance and share their knowledge of whakapapa

protocols, in its historical and contemporary context” (2011,

pp. 18-19). The following quotes also illustrate this:

We have courses in our qualifications that cater for the strengths of Māori; apart

from our marae, which they feel totally comfortable in and they realise that being

Māori is something proud. And one of our lecturers does a history lesson while they

are all lying in their beds during the Noho Marae. He will do a bit of a history on the

marae: the carvings, the paintings, what it means. So while they’re lying there it’s a

lesson to all students, but what it does is it invokes Māori to be proud of themselves.

Well we are conscious of building that into our programme so that we would send

everyone to a marae for a couple of days with our students’ core guide; that works

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amazingly! What we found is that a lot of our Māori students haven’t actually

explored that side of them; when we go to the marae for a couple of nights it’s like a

key that unlocks some things. They start finding out about these things about

themselves and their past and have quite deep and meaningful epiphanies.

Pronouncing Māori names correctly is also one way to

positively acknowledge Māori students. In the study by

Greenhalgh et al. (2011, p. 18) a tutor’s willingness to

attempt to pronounce Māori names correctly was seen as more

important than their competence at it.

Teaching staff also gave examples of situations where the

incorporation of particular principles of Māori tikanga could

be observed, although they might not be aware of it

themselves. The following comment expresses an implied

understanding of the concept and importance of whanau, or

extended family:

We’ve got a young Māori lad who came in here who didn’t ask many questions and

who completely flipped out on his first assessment. My bad call, I wasn’t monitoring

him enough. And so I went to have a talk to one of his relations and then had a talk

to him. He said ‘I can’t do it’ and I said ‘yeah you can, you just don’t realise that you

can’. Well that boy has absolutely flown! Absolutely taken off.

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One teacher acknowledged that he always put Māori students

together on work placements because they could support each

other:

What I’ve learnt about Māori is, halfway through the year you can’t turn around and

put them on a farm for two weeks, you cannot put a Māori by himself, you’ve got to

put them together. If you get one, they fall apart and come home. You put two of

them together, it seems like they’ve got someone to push each other, someone to

lean on, they work well. But one-on-one, no way.

This quote provides an example of peer support which has

principles of manaaki (hospitality and mutual support) and is

similar to the model of tuakana-teina (a peer support concept

between older and younger students).

Formal peer support programmes also have value for Māori and

Pasifika students. Research by Ross (n.d.) into a telephone

peer support programme for Māori and Pasifika students

studying by distance found that they valued the opportunity to

have regular contact with knowledgeable fellow students, as

well as their tutors. Ross (n.d.) found that the contact was

“encouraging and motivational” and enabled them to deal more

effectively with the demands of study (p.17). The results

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could be equally applied to learning in the face-to-face

environment. Interestingly, no formal examples of such

programmes were found in the data from the CLP.

The role of support staff and the engagement of Māori and Pasifika students

At institute level it seems typical to engage the services of

a designated support person (or people) for Māori and

sometimes Pasifika students. A common response of the teaching

staff interviewed for the CLP when asked if there was anything

in particular that was done to increase the engagement of

Māori and Pasifika students was to talk about such people:

So if I have Pacific Island or Māori students that I think they just need a hand up or

there’s something wrong with them and I don’t know what it is, I go and talk to

Audrey and say ‘could you just get alongside this person, I don’t know what’s wrong

but they look quieter or they’re not engaging in class’.

We have a Māori liaison officer in our student support team, and we now have a

Māori/Pasifika tutor in our learning support team.

Well, there’s the unit over there, and tomorrow we have a hui on the marae on

teaching Pacific Island and Māori students.

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For some of the teaching staff there was little connection

with these support services. They seemed to function quite

distinctly from the teaching of their own programmes:

Our institute actually has a group of Māori people, I’ve forgotten the name of them,

they’re supposed to interface with the Māori. To be perfectly frank, I haven’t seen

them, I haven’t laid eyes on them, I don’t even know where they are.

The learning centre has a Māori support person, a Pasifika support person, and they

have strategies and things. So if those students get in touch with them, and I think

they’re encouraged to when they enrol, they’ll be helped.

Participants in the CLP who showed the most recognition and

awareness of these specific people, came from the instances

where the support staff and teaching staff worked together.

In some cases it happened within the classroom, and this might

lead to students actively approaching such people outside the

classroom more. Attendance at the meetings of teaching staff

was also raised as being significant:

She comes into the classroom and supports our Māori students. So our Māori

students can go and find her if they’re struggling with an assignment and sit down

with her, if they’ve got anything to do with housing, finance issues, anything; so it’s

looking at the student holistically. So she always comes to our team meetings and is20

involved with our team to support our Māori students. We’re just trying to increase

that completion rate for Māori students. Having her in the classroom means that

Māori students know that she’s down in the whanau room, and know her face and

can access her and get to know her. I was saying to her the other day, when I

actually looked at the results of the Māori students, at the moment they’ve all

passed, they’re competent in all the things they’ve done so far. And that’s changed

compared to last semester.

It is important to note that often these support services

provide care on a holistic level: not just in terms of

classroom support, but help with issues outside the classroom

as well, as outlined above. Another concept was to use such

services to support not only the students, but the teaching

staff as well:

When we talked about tikanga in our classroom environment, she came in and team

taught it with me, which was great because it was Pakeha and Māori coming

together. So it was good collaborative team work. And she also comes in and she

helps with waiata regularly too, which builds up their repertoire of waiata, so when

they go out into centres they can actually use that and feel confident about singing.

The tutor in the above

example makes a significant

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You change a tutor, you change a lot morestudent lives.

point. While providing staff to support Māori and Pasifika

students directly is seen as valuable and productive, she also

values the input of support services staff directly with

teaching staff.

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Belonging and a sense of place

The importance of fostering a sense of belonging needs to be

addressed as it relates to Māori and Pasifika students.

Greenhalgh et al. (2001) found that a sense of belonging in

the classroom was identified as being paramount to successful

completion of study. “Waiata and karakia were noticed and

appreciated where they were included in classroom routines and

were effective tools in creating a sense of belonging (Mana

Whenua) and classroom cohesiveness” (p.18). Many examples of

these kinds of practices are outlined above in the quotes from

particular teaching staff. Another idea that encourages a

sense of belonging is the provision of a particular place for

students to feel connected to: a place to celebrate their

culture and meet other students and staff.

So the whanau room predominantly caters for Māori and Pacific Island students,

although anybody can base themselves there; we’ve got Pakeha students who base

themselves in the whanau room.

We also encourage the students to go into the whanau room here, because on a

Wednesday they have shared kai; usually the students bring some form of

ingredients and it’s usually cooked in the whanau room. Mainly the Māori students

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will come in, but there are four students from our programme who regularly go into

the Māori room, not actually Māori themselves, but they want to learn more about

the culture so they actually go in there.

Ross (n.d.) also found that the Māori and Pasifika students in

her study placed a lot of importance on belonging to a

learning group. So the development of a class culture, while

important for all students, can be viewed as particularly

significant for Māori and Pasifika students:

I think what students get when they come here is they start to build a family of

people. One of the wonderful things I got from doing my own adult teaching papers

was understanding culture. And thinking well culture is all about our New Zealand

Māori. And then going ‘oh yeah, now I get it’. So we build a culture within the

classroom and within the broader community. So I think making that a really cool

environment to be a part of, they take that with them wherever they go.

Summary of findings and recommendations

This section of the article presents the findings and

recommendations of the CLP as it relates to the engagement of

Māori and Pasifika students.

Summary of findings Recommendations

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While the government has a

strategy that focuses on

strengthening participation

and achievement for Māori and

Pasifika students, many

teaching staff showed

confusion and limited

awareness of what this

actually means at the

classroom level.

Courses that incorporate Noho

Marae provided an opportunity

for Māori students to feel

proud of their culture, and

for some, an opportunity to

connect with their culture for

the first time.

Institutes typically employed

specific people to support

Māori and Pasifika students in

a holistic way: from the

classroom through to their

Institutes should continue to

offer courses for staff that

increase awareness and

understanding of the issues

facing the engagement of

Māori and Pasifika students.

Institutes should continue to

offer professional

development opportunities for

staff that provide practical

and applicable ways to

incorporate Māori tikanga in

the classroom. A Noho Marae

is one particularly

successful way to do this.

Consideration should be given

to appointing advisors to

support and work alongside

teaching staff to incorporate

Māori content into courses.

Institutes can provide a

place, such as a whanau room,

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personal lives.

Fostering a sense of

belonging, while important for

all tertiary students, was

seen as being particularly

important for the engagement

of Māori and Pasifika

students.

Some institutes provided a

whanau room for Māori and non-

Māori students to encourage

engagement and interactions.

where all students can make

connections to other students

and cultures.

Institutes could consider

establishing peer support

programmes that incorporate

concepts such as aroha

(respect for others) and

kaupapa (the notion of

community). These can

operate in a tuakana-teina

sense to mentor Māori and

Pasifika students.

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The basis for kotahitanga (self-governing, unity)is what’s good for Māori is good for everyone,

and honestly it really is, because you create thatwhanonga (behaviour) with everybody.

References:

Benseman, J., Coxon, E., Anderson, H. & Anae, M. (2006).

Retaining non-traditional students: Lessons learnt from

Pasifika students in New Zealand. Higher Education Research &

Development, 25(2), 147-162.

Greenhalgh, A., Walker, S., Tipa-Rogers, K. & Hunter, R.

(2011). Tutor practices that increase completion for Māori PTE students.

Retrieved from http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/

Hall, M. (2011). ‘You model what you want to see from them’.

New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 8(1), 68-77.

Harrison, G., Marshall, G., & Beckham, A. (2009). Improving

participation, retention and progression of Māori tertiary learners in the Whanganui

region. Retrieved from http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/

Ministry of Education. (2010). Tertiary Education Strategy 2010 – 2015.

Retrieved from http://www.minedu.govt.nz/

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Ross, C. (n.d.). Culturally relevant peer support for Māori and Pasifika

student engagement, retention and success. Retrieved from

http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/

Tertiary Education Commission. (2012). Performance linked funding.

Retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/Funding/Policies-and-

processes/Performance-linked-funding/#sac

Author contact details:

Dr Jerry Hoffman

Southern Institute of Technology

PB 90114 Invercargill

Email: jerry.hoffman@sit.ac.nz

The full report on the Committed Learners Project can be

viewed at:

http://www.sit.ac.nz/documents/pdf/Research/34652SIT_CLPReport

_final_small.pdf

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