“The underachievement and disengagement of Pacific students is like the tangled net that needs to be untangled. Through effective leadership, I believe we’ll find solutions that can untangle those issues.” — Dr Tufulasi Taleni.
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“If a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum isn’t grounded in te ao Māori and the very people and things that make Aotearoa unique, who is determining the knowledge and where does it come from?” — Jessie Moss on the ideology behind education reform.
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“Even the most skilled school leader is constrained by the ongoing failure of the state to address the deep inequity in our education system. New Zealand ranks 33rd out of 38 developed countries for its overall equality in education.” — Rebecca Macfie, author of ‘Hope and Hardship’.
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“Western, colonial education systems may be out of favour in 2025, but call it a ‘knowledge-rich’ system, and somehow it’s more acceptable.” — Erica Hamilton, secondary school teacher.
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“I still have James’s letter. It became my conscience. It reminded me not to walk away from something I should be fixing. He asked me to come back, and I didn’t.” — Professor Welby Ings remembers a seven-year-old student he had taught in Ōtara 50 years ago.
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“The emotional toll on tamariki Māori when their language is absent from core learning, or reduced to tokenism, is devastating. It tells them their identity is secondary.” — Te Aumoana Kingi.
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“Children have a human right to a quality education that equips them for effective participation in a strong democracy — not one that simply shapes them into cogs for the economic machine.” — Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.
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“Elizabeth Rata often equates the inclusion of iwi, hapū and whānau knowledge and values into teaching with an emptying out of academic knowledge. She has been instrumental in shaping the new English curriculum.” — Jessie Moss.
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“I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of our ability to educate through a te ao Māori lens. You only have to look at the amazing results in kura kaupapa Māori for the 3 percent of Māori who attend those kura.” — Bruce Jepsen, Te Akatea (Māori Principals Association)
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“Many of the ‘truant’ or simply AWOL students have been stood down, either legally or illegally, for not much more than ‘defiance’ or vaping, or some other teenage-y manifestation, and have decided not to go back.” — Shelley Burne-Field.
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“If a kid comes to school and they’re hungry, then feed them. If they’re cold, give them a jacket. We’re not here to judge parents.” — Karl Vasau.
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“Something happens at graduate school to make people leave — and we believe a lot of it has to do with the racism you experience in the university system.” — Dr Leilani Walker & Dr Sereana Naepi.
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“I still remember the Year 13 dean who decided I didn’t need university pamphlets because, in his eyes, I wasn’t university material.” — Jemaima Tiatia, Pro Vice Chancellor Pacific at Auckland University.
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“I wouldn’t say the school was racist, as such. There were Māori staff, a makeshift marae on-site, Māori students excelling in pockets. It was, however, uncomfortably tolerant of racist rhetoric.” — Airana Ngarewa.
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“Like the Hawaiian atua Pele, portrayed as a goddess of volcanoes and fire, Haunani-Kay Trask could be volcanic in her thinking and writing, a lava flow of protest.” — Kennedy Warne.
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“We have to treat every Pacific student as being precious because they are precious. And we should remember that each student is a connection to an entire community.” — Dr Sereana Naepi.
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Teachers “don’t realise they spend more time with Asian and Pākehā students. Māori students see it, though, and retreat to the back of the classroom, where they sit in groups and disengage.” — Anton Blank.
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“We don’t need to try to shape ourselves to fit Pālagi measures of success. Because we will never win, if we just play by those rules.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
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“In these fields, the tūpuna lie where they fell in the swamps or in unmarked graves hastily dug by survivors, with the dead piled up around them. I swear I can sometimes hear their voices.” — Joanna Kidman.
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“Even though I studied at tertiary level for 10 years, I’ve never had a Pacific lecturer, and there were no Pacific academics who could supervise my PhD in my school.” — Jess Pasisi.
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“It was straight-up rude to be honest. That mishandling, misunderstanding, minimising of mana.” — Becky Manawatu, award-winning novelist, on being labelled “average” after one school test.
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“When we had king tides at night, we’d have to put our mattresses on Mum’s bed and wait until the tide went down. And Dad would put the babies, asleep, in the plastic baby bath, and they’d just be floating on the tide.”
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“We’ve struggled to find a space where we can be Māori and feel safe within these institutions.” — Māori doctoral students.
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“When I take the clamps off the vessels and see the shrivelled-up grey kidney become purple and then pink and then pulsate with blood, nothing else I do beats that.” — Dr Lupe Taumoepeau.
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“Don’t let schooling get in the way of your education, moko.” — Haare Williams’ grandmother, after his first day of school in 1943.
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