Compulsory context

Should first-year university students be required to learn about local history and Te Tiriti? Kyle Tan, who arrived in Aotearoa as an international student, says it’s essential.

 

This month, the University of Auckland confirmed its plan to require all first-year undergraduate students to complete a “Waipapa Taumata Rau” core course. Waipapa Taumata Rau is the Māori name gifted to the university, and the course will introduce students to knowledge about the university, the wider city, the country, and its people and history, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The pro vice-chancellor Māori described the course as a “bold move”, which will ensure students have knowledge of te ao Māori and Aotearoa New Zealand history as they enter the workforce.

In the media discussion that followed, one loud voice emerged — Act MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar, the same person who previously opposed Māori and Pacific safe spaces in universities. This time, she publicly condemned the Waipapa Taumata Rau course, labelling it “a form of indoctrination”.

She also shared her opinion that international students would not benefit from this mandatory course. I’d like to offer an alternative perspective as an international student from Malaysia.

When I began my postgraduate studies here in 2016, it didn’t take long for me to conclude that New Zealand is a western country, as English is the main language of communication. English is my second language, and I continue to face daily judgment for my pronunciation and writing. Most of the psychology courses I took primarily imparted western knowledge, and there was no specific course covering Te Tiriti, te reo, or te ao Māori.

The fragmented approach to teaching Māori content limited opportunities for international students like me to engage meaningfully with local history. With little knowledge of the country’s Indigenous history, I struggled with assignments requiring me to reflect on evidence of Māori social inequities, the operations and impacts of racism and settler colonialism, and cultural and racial differences.

For a long time, academia wasn’t fulfilling my need in these areas of knowledge, so I turned to Māori scholars for mentorship, built connections with peers in Māori-Asian solidarity groups, and did my own reading. This additional learning proved essential in developing my role as a socially responsible citizen, a researcher responding to Vision Mātauranga, and an aspiring culturally-safe practitioner.

Depriving international students of knowledge about Te Tiriti inadvertently encourages apathy towards the foundational history of Aotearoa. It is a divide-and-conquer strategy to create divisions between international students and Māori. International students may form racial stereotypes about Māori through negative media reporting, while local students “other” us as temporary foreigners who are insensitive to Aotearoa norms and cultures.

When someone has limited knowledge of the articles of Te Tiriti and the Crown’s historical breaches, Māori are more easily reduced to a mere racial group. Without an informed understanding of the objectives behind equity-based initiatives, such as Māori and Pacific spaces and the Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme, international students can erroneously perceive Māori as “privileged” and contribute to anti-Māori sentiments.

While universities are working to increase the intake of international students, many institutions fall short of addressing our desire to feel a sense of belonging in this country. International students are treated as commodities to enhance universities’ financial status.

It’s astonishing for Dr Parmar to suggest that international students, who have chosen to come all the way to New Zealand to study, would wish to be removed from learning about te ao Māori. Rather than encouraging international students to engage in cross-cultural learning and embrace Indigenous cultures, she is instilling fear that we may be “shoved” into learning Māori content.

The welcome through a pōwhiri, the greeting through a waiata, and the whakawhanaungatanga during a whakatau are all part of the manaakitanga and hospitality extended by Māori, and at no stage in these processes are we pressured to “become” Māori.

In my Malaysian Chinese culture, there is a proverb ‘入鄉隨俗’ (pronounced rù xiāng suí sú) which reflects our custom of respecting local traditions and acculturating to foster harmonious relationships. To selectively acculturate to European systems by focusing solely on westernised content while ignoring mātauranga Māori goes against the values of many collectivist cultures like my own, including the need to “save face” and “protect the honour” of those we are engaging with.

Dr Parmar raised the potential danger of teaching a uniform “perspective” on Te Tiriti issues, but she didn’t point out the fine line between a “perspective” and a “fact”. Her own political party has attempted to erase history and rewrite Te Tiriti by promoting a single view of the document that undermines Māori sovereignty.

The history of the signing of He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti, the wars and invasions by British troops, the Kīngitanga movement, the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal, and the present day anti-Māori attacks are all crucial content for contextualising the current sociopolitical context of Aotearoa.

Not only is an introductory course important, it is also essential to incentivise first-year international students to delve into additional literature that broadens their knowledge. The course should also create ample opportunities for critical discussion and allow space for students to relate the content to their cultural backgrounds, nationalities, and upbringings.

 

Kyle Tan has Malaysian Chinese whakapapa. He arrived in Aotearoa as an international student in 2016 to study psychology. He later chose to live in Aotearoa as an immigrant and is now a researcher at the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Waikato.

E-Tangata, 2024