CHAPTER 14

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai

Maori, as subjects of cultural invasion and with the marginalisation of their language in the school curriculum, have an inherently radical potential to transform the education system.

That potential was manifested in 1981 when Maori established kohanga reo to ward off the death of the Maori language predicted by Richard Benton. Today there are 700 licensed kohanga reo around the country, thereby securing the future of the language. The positive spin­off from kohanga reo is a contribution towards closing the education gap. When kohanga reo were established, the Maori participation rate in pre-school education was only 50 per cent that of the Pakeha rate. By 1994 the Maori participation rate had improved to 81 per cent. While kohanga reo contributed to narrowing the gap, 19 per cent of Maori children are still missing out on pre-school education.! Research has yet to be done to discover why this is so.

In the 1980s Maori educators established ktira kaupapa to provide continuity of Maori-language teaching between kohanga reo and primary schools. There are fifty-nine kura kaupapa, four of them at secondary level. What differentiates kohanga and kura from their main­stream counterparts is governance, Maori control and management of their own education. Their pedagogy is based on wairua Maori and the values of whanaungatanga, manaaki and aroha ki te tangata.

Wananga

Contemporaneous with the establishment of kohanga reo and kura kaupapa was the move by Maori intellectuals to establish wananga. According to Maori epistemology, humans have no knowledge of their own. All knowledge emanates from the celestial realm of the gods. Rangiatea, the storehouse of occult knowledge and prototype of the whare wananga, was situated in the uppermost realm of the heavens. Tanenuiarangi ascended to the uppermost heaven where he obtained

344

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 345

the three baskets of knowledge from the Supreme Being.2 Tane brought the three baskets of knowledge - te kete tuauri, te kete tuatea and te kete aronui - down from the heavens for dissemination on earth. These baskets contained spiritual knowledge, celestial knowledge and knowl­edge of all the good things that men need to know for life on earth. Ruatepupuke, the fount of knowledge, erected the first house of learning on earth in the Hawaiki homeland of the Maori.

Ancestral waka on arrival in Aotearoa planted their tribal gods in the new land and established whare wananga. These were schools of learning where various grades of tohunga were trained in different fields of human endeavour. With the advent of colonisation, whare wananga were displaced by Pakeha schools of learning. In 1907 the Tohunga Suppression Act pushed tohunga rongoa, the practitioners of faith­healing and medicinal plants, to the margins of society. Despite the attenuation of Maori knowledge, whare wananga were still part of the collective memory. In the second half of the last century some tribes began holding wananga for the children of urban migrants to learn their whakapapa, traditions and waiata. Urban migrants applied the term whare wananga to universities of the Pakeha. Visionaries dreamed of having their own wananga where matauranga Maori would be taught in tandem with Western epistemology.

Te Wananga 0 Raukawa

One of the dreamers of a better future for his lWl was Professor Whatarangi Winiata of Ngati Raukawa. On his return from Canada to take up a post at Victoria University in 1978, Winiata was horrified to find that his own tribe was looking down the barrel of Benton's prognosis of Maori language death. To counter that gloomy future, Winiata launched Whakatupuranga Ruamano, his Generation 2000 project with the objective of quadrupling the number of Maori speakers in his iwi before the turn of the century. To generate momentum, Winiata turned to the Raukawa Marae Trustees, a representative body of the iwi and hapu of Te Atiawa, Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Toarangatira confederation of tribes. This confederation straddles Cook Strait, taking in the top of the South Island and the lower part of the North Island from the Rangitikei River. Between 1978 and 1981, the Raukawa Marae Trustees made four submissions to the Government to fund a Maori institute of learning. They were rebuffed.3 Undeterred, the protagonists of the school began teaching courses in Maori language, tikanga, and hapu and iwi history. With no budget the school depended

346 'Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

on 'kaiawhina', the voluntary services of graduates from within the confederation.4

In April 1981 the Raukawa Marae Trustees formalised the existence of their centre of higher learning by establishing Te Wananga 0 Raukawa as a natural and necessary extension of Whakatupuranga Ruamano. With only two students to start with, there were 'heaps of people' wanting to teach them. Out of this experience the wananga developed the concepts that underpin the curriculum of iwi and hapu studies which is at the core of its degree programme. The objective of this tribal initiative at the tertiary level of education was to produce bicultural administrators, teachers and researchers who would enhance the quality of decision­making in the bureaucratic and social institutions of the nation.

In 1984 Te Wananga 0 Raukawa became an incorporated body and began teaching its first degree, a BMA or Bachelor of Maori Adminis­tration. Although the degree had no official standing in the academic community, the Raukawa trustees had faith in the ability of their own people to deliver quality teaching to the students. The trustees had the voluntary services of high-calibre academics such as Mason and Eddie Durie, Turoa Royal, Colin Knox and Professor Winiata to teach their courses.

Winiata's vision of establishing a wananga to satisfy Maori edu­cational and cultural needs not catered for by existing tertiary education providers anticipated the educational reforms under Tomorrow's Schools in 1988. The provision for 'special character' schools validated kura kaupapa and wananga, as a group of people representing twenty-one students could develop a charter for a new institution to present to the Ministry of Education for approval and funding. The 1998 Hawke Report supported this transformation by advocating decentralisation of post-compulsory education and training, and recognising Maori claims to education under the 'principles of the Treaty ofWaitangi'.5

The reforms advocated under ,Tomorrow's Schools and by Hawke were incorporated in the Education Amendment Act 1990. Section 162 of the Act allowed for the establishment of colleges of education, poly­technics, universities and wananga. The Act states: A wananga is characterised by teaching and research that maintains, advances and disseminates knowledge and develops intellectual independence, and assists the application of knowledge regarding ahuatanga Maori (Maori tradition) according to tikanga Maori (Maori custom).

Under this legislation Te Wananga 0 Raukawa was recognised as a provider of tertiary education in 1993.6 The wananga received its first EFTS (Equivalent Full-time Students) funding from the Crown in 1994.

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 347

In the meantime the wananga had established considerable capital assets by way of buildings and equipment on its campus at Otaki through the 'sweat equity' of its voluntary teachers. Te Wananga 0

Raukawa Incorporated is the holder of these assets.7

Degree proposals from wananga are subjected to a rigorous process of scrutiny and accreditation by a New Zealand Q!lalifications Authority (NZQA) panel drawn from stakeholders in tertiary education, including polytechnics, colleges of education and nominees from the Universities Vice-Chancellors' Committee. The wananga has to convince the panel that it has the facilities, resources and quality management systems to support a degree programme. It is required to have qualified staff with degrees above the level of the degree being taught, and must demonstrate that staff members are engaged in research activity to inform their teaching and add to the store of human knowledge. Degrees approved by the NZQA panel have the same national and international standing as university degrees.

Te Wananga 0 Raukawa offers undergraduates a choice of seven options for their bachelor's degree. The compulsory tahuhu, comprising two-thirds of the degree, consists of te reo Maori, iwi and hapu studies. Depending on which of the seven options they take, the students qualify for the degree of Bachelor of Maori Administration, Bachelor of Maori Laws and Philosophy, Bachelor of Health Studies, Bachelor of Hapu Development, Bachelor of Design and Art, Poumanawa Whakaako Akoranga or Bachelor of Matauranga Maori. Graduates have the choice of a Post-graduate Diploma in Maori and Management, a Post-graduate Diploma in Te Reo Maori, a Master of Maori Management degree and a Master of Matauranga Maori degree. The culture-specific focus of the wananga's curriculum, with options aimed at Maori community needs, characterises Te Wananga 0 Raukawa as a boutique tertiary education provider. It fills a niche market not met by other tertiary educational institutions (TEIs). Furthermore, the nature of the niche market is reflected in the student body. With open entry, the average age of students is thirty-five. Few have secondary qualifications and most have had negative learning experiences at primary and secondary school. Some require bridging courses in literacy and numeracy.

The pedagogy of the wananga is characterised by 'ahuatanga Maori'. At the outset that characteristic was exemplified by the concept of kaiawhina, people who gave their academic services without remunera­tion. The wananga has 223 kaiawhina who provide some programme support to the 185 full-time staff. On enrolment, students purchase computers from the wananga and are given instructions for setting them

348 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

up. They come into the wananga from around the country for block courses over extended weekends and live in marae-style dormitories. They are treated with the traditional canons of manaaki and receive marae hospitality in the dining hall, where the ringa wera or 'hot cooks' provide them with ample helpings of good-quality three-course meals. The kitchen staff of the wananga, some of whom were enrolled in courses, took such pride in their work that they researched their menus and found that they had changed ~>ver time from traditional boil-ups to more wholesome balanced diets. One piece of research looked into the rate of chipping in crockery, thereby giving an indication of suitable replacements to the administration.8

Although the wananga's documentation of quality management systems sets out all the standard regulations and student requirements, ahuatanga Maori figures largely in how the campus at Otaki is run. The wananga, being a tikanga-based Maori institution, invokes customary practice to manage student behaviour. Students are instructed in 'Te kawa o te ako', the protocols of instruction in traditional times concerning the sanctity of knowledge. The pursuit of higher learning being a tapu task, the wananga must not be defiled or impaired by the use of drugs or alcohol. Students who cannot be trusted risk being told to leave the campus and not come back. Te kawa 0 te ako has also reduced sexual harassment down to almost zero since its introduction. Petty crime such as office intrusions and staff losses of personal items were deemed to be transgressions against rangatiratanga. Such offences also fell away under te kawa 0 te ako. Perhaps the most telling use of ahuatanga Maori was the wananga's resort to ohaki, a dying testament, to declare the campus at Otaki a 'smoke-free zone'. A staff member who was dying of lung cancer expressed the wish that others would learn from her experience. In the middle of 2000 the CEO circulated a notice of the ohaki to staff and students. Staff, in all conscience as Maori, could not vote against the ohaki, so the campus was declared a smoke-free zone in January 2001. Smokers, whether staff or students, have to smoke outside the entrance to the campus.9

At the end of each noho or live-in, students return home to do assignments and self-directed study. With their computers set up at home they are on-line with their tutors. Students having computers in their homes help whanau to bridge the digital divide. The output of assignments concerning whakapapa, hapu, iwi, ancestral houses, marae, tribal traditions and kawa is prodigious compared with other undergraduate degrees. The papers generated by the research of undergraduates are marked and returned to them as tribal property to

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 349

be deposited in their own archives. In 2000 the wananga pioneered marae-based studies designed to

facilitate learning in hapu communities of the confederation of tribes. Four of the twenty-five marae in the confederation participated in the first trial, with another site at Arapuni, the northern extremity of N gati Raukawa's territory. Each site established a Komiti Matauranga, respon­sible for supervising the programme at that location and appointing a kaitutui or a liaison person and a kaiwhakaako or teacher.lO

Since gaining approval as a tertiary education provider in 1993, Te Wananga 0 Raukawa has registered slow but steady growth in student numbers. Enrolments rose from 687 in 1999 to 1,994 in 2000. 11 In that time graduates, including those with certificates and diplomas as well as bachelors' degrees, rose from 235 to 790. Graduates with masters' degrees rose from eight to fourteen. On this baseline the wananga has in train a proposal for a PhD programme with NZQ!\.

Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa

Rongo Wetere, the tumuaki and founding director of Te Wananga 0

Aotearoa, is an organic intellectual who worked as a farmer and in insurance before becoming a problem-solver in Maori education. When he was elected to the Te Awamutu College Board of Governors in 1983, Wetere became aware of the high rate of Maori student truancy and school drop-out. With the assistance of Dr Buck Nin, he persuaded the board to establish a marae on campus to make the school a more user­friendly and culturally welcoming place for students. His objective was to improve community awareness of Maori culture and to lift the aspirations of Maori students by instilling pride in their culture.

The master carver Pakaariki Harrison and his wife Hinemoa were engaged to do the carving and decorative tukutuku work for the meeting house. Harrison planned for the costs of carving the poupou to be sponsored by businesses in Te Awamutu. Initially he got no takers, the community being divided over the merits of a project in a town not far from where Rewi Maniapoto made his last stand against the British Imperial army of General Cameron. Undeterred, the Harrisons began carving and weaving in an old factory shed. As people dropped in and saw the unfolding beauty of the artwork, attitudes changed and sponsors came forward. The house was subsequently opened debt-free. A small step had been taken towards healing the past.

The meeting house at Te Awamutu College is an historical monument to the coming together of the two cultures, with the

350 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

depiction of the waka HMS Endeavour inside the front wall of the house as well as the Tainui waka of the Waikato confederation of tribes. At one end is the poupou of the warrior chief Rewi Maniapoto. On the opposite wall Harrison placed his depictions of Maniapoto's opponents, General Cameron and Bishop Selwyn. It was a controversial move that roused the ire of the Tainui elders. When they challenged Harrison to explain such an unprecedented juxtaposition of ancestors, he replied with mild equanimity, 'So they won't forget their history.'12 Although the elders argued about it for years afterwards, another step had been taken towards reconciliation as community groups began using the house for meetings after school hours.

The young men and women trained by the Harrisons in building Otaawhao marae at Te Awamutu became the nucleus of the Waipa Kokiri Centre (WKC). Wetere obtained a grant of $80,000 from Maori Affairs to establish the centre. With no prior experience in construction, Wetere's crew of unemployed workers dismantled a large factory building and re-erected it on the grounds of the college refuse tip. In 1987 the WKC taught young people, who had no school qualifications, basic skills in carpentry, joinery, engineering, plumbing and drain-laying with the objective of enhancing their employment prospects. The centre was funded by the Rural Education Activities Programme (REAP). Over the next decade the WKC gave on-the-job training to its builders, plumbers and drain-layers constructing buildings and toilet blocks in and around Te Awamutu. The centre's carving and weaving module worked on and completed over fifty marae projects around the country. Criticism that the WKC was a separatist institution was unfounded. In 1996 and 1997, of the 126 trainees at the centre, 86 were Pakeha. By this time the centre was being referred to as a wananga. From its head office in Te Awamutu the wananga opened training centres in other places.

Between 1987 and 1992 new campuses were established at Manukau in South Auckland, Te Kuiti, Hamilton and Rotorua. With these extended operations, the parochial name ofWaipa Kokiri Centre was no longer appropriate. In 1989 the WKC was registered under the 1989 Education Act as the Aotearoa Institute. The institute was approved by the NZQA to teach twelve courses as a private training establishment under the Act.13 New campuses were subsequently established at Mangere, Tokoroa and Porirua. All the regional campuses were deliberately located in areas of high Maori unemployment where there was a ready-made constituency for the wananga.

In 1993 Wetere took advantage of the 1990 Education Amendment

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 351

Act to register the institute as Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa (TWOA). The wananga is a Maori tertiary educational organisation whose philosophy is founded on 'ahuatanga Maori'. The defining characteristics of ahuatanga Maori are the Maori language, tikanga, aroha, manaaki and whanaungatanga (relationships). Whanaungatanga defines both staff and students as whanau, one large extended family. It is the institutionalised ethos of whanaungatanga that attracts Maori students to the wananga, where they feel welcomed, wanted and culturally safe.

Three principles distinguish TWOA from other tertiary providers. Firstly, the wananga was founded on research. It identified student learning needs for their language, culture and tikanga before deciding on its core programme. Secondly, the general courses in the programme are constructed around student learning needs. in post-secondary education to prepare them for the workforce, or to staircase them on to higher education. Thirdly, the staff is collectively committed to the mission of the wananga to:

• promote ahuatanga Maori • increase Maori participation in tertiary education • achieve successful outcomes for students • staircase Maori into higher education.

With the objective of closing the education gap between Maori and Pakeha, the wananga opted for open entry to students. Consequently 34 per cent of students are either unemployed or welfare beneficiaries and 37 per cent are wage and salary workers, while 10 per cent are house persons or retired. Only 4 per cent come to the wananga direct from high school. Six per cent of students are undergraduates or graduates from polytechnics, universities and colleges of education. These students treat the wananga as a finishing school to add Maori language and culture to their degrees. Three per cent of students are self­employed while 2 per cent are from overseas. The ethnic mix of the wananga is 77 per cent Maori, 16 per cent Pakeha/European, 5 per cent Pacific Island, 1 per cent Asian and 1 per cent other.14

The documents the wananga provides for students are lucid, plainly written and easy to read for a clientele with no qualifications. The wananga's Mauri Te Taki 'Take up the Challenge' student information pack on course offerings is of high quality and an exemplar of best practice. The programme brochures are attractive, appealing and concise. Similarly, the wananga's Manu Tauira Handbook and diary is appealing and user-friendly for students. Its methodology of posing questions from a student's viewpoint, then providing the answers, is an effective

352 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

way of getting students to read it and find out what they need to know. Also in the same vein is Te Ake Rautangi, the student research and study guide. It is a practical guide for undergraduates about getting started on study, research, writing essays and citing references. The nature of the wananga's student documents indicates that they were written with the needs of students rather than the institution in mind.

Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa is a unique provider of tertiary education in New Zealand with its central campus and head office located in Te Awamutu, ten regional campuses and varied programme delivery sites consisting of outposts, outreach, off-sites, virtual learning centres and satellites. In 2004 there were five programme divisions in the wananga:

• mixed-mode operations • general education programmes • School of Education and Teacher Training • School of Maori Art and Carving • School of Business.

The mixed-mode operations recorded unprecedented growth between 2001 and 2003. The flagship programmes with high enrolments were Mahi Ora (27,000), Te Ara Reo Maori (16,000) and Kaihoe Waka (549). These programmes are 'on levels 1-3 of the New Zealand Qyalifications Framework. The courses are designed to increase Maori participation in tertiary education by drawing in students whose previous experiences of education at primary and secondary school had been negative and culturally alienating. Many of them have been the opt-outs, drop-outs and kick-outs of the education system. They leave secondary school with no qualifications before spending ten to fifteen years in low-paid jobs, unemployed or on welfare benefits. These students comprise what is euphemistically known as 'the gaps' in education and employment between Maori and Pakeha. It is this client group, neglected by other tertiary education providers, that boosted the enrolment at TWOA to more than 30,000. Kiwi Ora, an adaptation of the Mahi Ora pro­gramme for Asians, attracted over 2,500 students in Auckland to an address by the CEO, Rongo Wetere.

Notwithstanding that most Maori students have low self-esteem because of past failure at school, the majority look upon the wananga as the best chance they have had in education. For those who had literacy and numeracy problems, the wananga devised bridging courses and a literacy programme. Tutors, known as kaiako, were trained to simplify their instruction and to make learning an enjoyable experience.

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 353

Students thrived in the whanau atmosphere fostered by the wananga. They particularly valued the opportunity to learn their language and to recover their culture and sense of pride in their identity as Maori.

The most compelling experience for any official visitor to the wananga is the mana, ihi and wehi (awesome presence and power) of the cultural renaissance exhibited by students in the powhiri. The power' of the powhiri, whether performed at head office or the regional campuses, is the most palpable manifestation of the Maori cultural renaissance. It is an undeniable force that has put to rest the assimi­lationist ethos of the colonising culture. IS

Although the Mahi Ora programme had the highest enrolments, Te Ara Reo Maori (TARM), with 16,000 students enrolled around the country, is one of the most significant course offerings of the wananga. The course is notable for its ako. whakatere (accelerated learning) pedagogy adapted from the UK and the USA. The wananga's profes­sional development team trains kaiako to teach the programme evenly across campuses and multiple delivery sites. Class enrolments are limited to thirty to achieve the ideal learning group of around twenty-five. A Pakeha enrolment of 15 per cent indicates the success of the TARM pedagogy, which makes second-language learning pleasurable and non­threatening. With TARM the wananga has pioneered a Maori-language teaching programme that has no equivalent in other tertiary providers.

Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa is the only provider of tertiary education in New Zealand that requires staff to learn the Maori language. Fortu­nately for Pakeha staff at the. wananga, they have an accessible programme in TARM.

Although the wananga disseminates course information by the usual methods, its most effective advertising is by word of mouth. Iwi from around the country invite the wananga to deliver the TARM programme in their regions. This explains how the wananga penetrates the territories of other tertiary providers without their being aware of it. Relationships are established in the region and other programmes are piggy-backed in on the success ofTARM. Campuses are then established in centres with a substantial Maori population. Perhaps the most surprising feature of the spread of the wananga is the request for joint ventures from other tertiary organisations. Requests for joint ventures to deliver TARM have come from as far afield as Northland Polytechnic in Whangarei and Ngai Tahu at Christchurch and the Southern Institute of Technology.

The economic solidity of the wananga is based on its level 1-3 certificate and diploma courses. These courses, having demystified educati<?n for students, encourage them to go on to more advanced

354 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

courses. The wananga originally responded to student aspirations for higher learning by staircasing them to other TEIs. With students wanting to continue their education within the wananga, however, it responded by developing its own in-house degree programme within the School of Education. The wananga offers three degree programmes:

• Te Korowai Akonga, Bachelor of Teaching (primary), introduced in 2001

• Toi Paematua, Bachelor of Carving, Raranga and Visual Arts, taught in 2004

• Bachelor of Business Administration, taught in 2004.

Given the shortage of qualified people and the competition between tertiary institutions to recruit them, the business degree was well served with five appointments of PhD-holders. With the wananga's class­contact maximum of sixteen hours for teachers of degree programmes, the wananga is well positioned to do seminal research in the virgin field of Maori business development.

Although the wananga's degree programme is only in its embryonic stage at the time of writing, good progress is being made in establishing a research culture. The wananga has a register of scholarly activity in the School of Business and the School of Education. The bulk of research at the wananga had previously been associated with professional development and staff upgrading their qualifications. But, with the move up the Q!Ialifications Framework, the wananga established Te Puna Rangahau Research unit to do research on iwi land claims. In its annual report the unit lists twenty-seven outputs, some of which are on-going. In addition, the wananga appointed Dr Pip Bruce-Fergusson as director of research and refurbished an existing building in Hamilton to serve as a research centre and library that was opened in 2004. Dr Fergusson and her assistant, Puawai Cairns, are designated as research co-ordinators. Cairns has produced Te Ake Rautangi, the excellent undergraduate student research and study guide on how to write essays, do research for assignments and cite references and bibliographies. There is also a schedule of staff research projects 2002 by Sen Wong, liaison manager of research.

The wananga is also associated with Te Pae 0 te Maramatanga, the C.entre of Research Excellence at the University of Auckland. Overseeing all research at the wananga is Te Kahui Rangahau, the research committee chaired by the deputy manager, Bentham Ohia. All research conducted at the wananga is subjected to scrutiny by the Te Kahui Rangahau under the guidelines set out in the Research and Ethics Protocols Statement 2003.

Ka Mau Tonu Ie Whawhai 355

Research at the wananga is not the sole preserve of academics and teachers of degree programmes. Even at levels 1-3 of the QIalifications Framework, tutors in whakairo, raranga and kaihoe waka were doing research to inform their teaching. They were encouraged to write up their findings in an in-house journal.

Te Whare Wananga 0 Awanuiarangi

Professor Hirini (Sidney) Moko Mead, following his retirement from Victoria University, was the driving force in the establishment of Te Whare Wananga 0 Awanuiarangi. In 1991 Mead persuaded Te Runanga o Ngati Awa to establish the wananga, which opened in 1992 on the site of the Apanui Education Centre in Whakatane. The wananga serves the tribes within the boundaries of the Mataatua waka in the Bay of Plenty, extending from 'Nga Kuri a Wharei' near Katikati to 'Tihirau' near Cape Runaway.

Notwithstanding that the buildings it inherited from the Apanui Education Centre were humble prefabricated classrooms, the wananga set a lofty vision for itself 'to be the pre-eminent tribal university and first choice for Te Reo and Tikanga education research and development in Aotearoa'. It is a truism that 'knowledge is power', enabling people who have it to deal with the world of reality. Accordingly, the wananga's mission is to 'empower the descendants of Awanuiarangi and all Maori to claim and develop their cultural heritage'. With cultural pride and identity secured, the broader objective is to enhance their knowledge base to enable Maori to face with confidence and dignity the challenges of life before them. 16

Although the wananga got approval from the NZQA in 1992 to start teaching its Bachelor of Maori Studies and other degree programmes, thereafter Awanuiarangi struggled to obtain registration as a wananga and recognition as a TEL At the powhiri to the NZQA for the first degree accreditation, Mead in his whaikorero addressed the chairman of the panel, saying, 'He iwi pohara matou,17 we are a poor tribe, we need the approval of this degree, to get the EFTS, to get the money, to pay the teachers.' This plea on the marae was symptomatic of the struggle to get the wananga started. Worse still, the wananga, being established in the era of 'user pays', had to pay the costs of assembling the NZQA accreditation panel, including travel, accommodation and sitting fees for two days and a third day for reading the applicant's quality management systems document and degree proposal. For the first five years of its existence, the wananga was funded as a private training

356 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

establishment (PTE) instead of at the higher level of a TEL, which the status of wananga warranted. Wananga status was not secured from the Ministry of Education until 199718 and this delay in securing full entitlement to EFTS funding cramped the development of the wananga in facilities, recruitment of staff and purchase of books for the library. Initially, th~ library was located in a rented house and stocked with donated books.

Given its resource limitations, Te Awanuiarangi adopted the strategy of progressively developing its academic programme over ten years. The Faculty of Maori Studies began with a Bachelor of Maori Studies degree, then added diplomas in Maori Studies, Maori Leadership and Maori Health. The wananga also pioneered distance teaching of a Maori language immersion programme on-line using CD-ROM The most recen t offering in the Maori field is Te Toi Whakarei Paetahi, the Bachelor of Visual Culture degree. Assisting in the development of this degree was Dr Tony Ward, formerly of the University of Auckland.

The Faculty of Education was developed in parallel with Maori Studies, offering a Bachelor of Maori Education (Teaching), a Bachelor of Maori Education, a Diploma in Early Childhood Teaching and a Graduate Diploma in Teaching. On this foundation the wananga offered two post-graduate degrees, Master of Indigenous Studies and Master of Maori Studies. 19 In 2003 the wananga had a PhD programme pending approval from the NZQA. The teaching and academic quality of these undergraduate and post-graduate programmes were assisted by Professor Roger Green, Graham and Linda Smith and Caroline Phillips from the University of Auckland. It also helped that there was a memorandum of understanding between the two institutions in tacit recognition that the University of Auckland was founded on an endow­ment of land confiscated from Ngati Awa.

One of the wananga's adult students, Terry Kapua, who was enthusiastic about academic study, was readily recruited as a tutor. With his experience in broadcasting and knowledge of growth in iwi radio stations, Kapua developed Te Tohu Paetahi Papaho, the Bachelor of Media Studies. This degree, offered in 2003, provided talented young. Maori radio announcers from iwi stations with an opportunity to gain a formal qualification that would enhance their employment prospects in the wider broadcasting industry.

With the dearth of Maori scientists, the wananga chose environ­mental science as its next area of development. It offered Te Tohu Taiao, the Bachelor of Environmental Studies. The Bay of Plenty, with its farming and marine environment, was ideally suited to such a degree.

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 357

The wananga recruited Dr Gary Hook from the USA to provide aca­demic leadership for the programme. Hook, the first recipient of the Qgeen Elizabeth II Fellowship from the Maori Education Foundation, ran a multi-million-dollar laboratory in America specialising in toxic wastes and environmental health. He gave this up to come home and make a contribution out of a sense of obligation to his people. Hook had a science laboratory built at Poroporo and immediately set his students to study faecal contamination from animal and human wastes in local waterways. The first effect was to warn children living near the local marae against bathing in the streams.

Capital Funding

Every gain that Maori made in the second half of the twentieth century was achieved by struggling against the hegemony ofPakeha power. These three wananga, notwithstanding the worth of their social objectives, were not excepted from that struggle, inherent in the title of this book. In 1993 the wananga came together to form Te Tauihu 0 Nga Wananga Associ­ation. They shared the struggle to get established with few resources and cast-off buildings. Rongo Wetere lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal against the Crown for capital funding on behalf of the associa­tion. The claimants alleged that the Crown had failed to fund wananga equitably compared with other TEls such as universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. The wananga alleged that they were prejudiced by the 1990 amendments to the Education Act 1989 which ruled out the provision of capital funding for TEls established after 1990. They claimed that capital funding given to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education prior to 1990 while denying the same funding to wananga thereafter was a breach of the Treaty ofWaitangi.20

The Education Amendment Act 1990 introduced provisions for bulk funding of TEls under the EFTS system and also made it possible for wananga to apply for TEl staus and thereby obtain greater government funding than PTEs. Unfortunately for wananga, money for capital works was built into the EFTS system of funding. This benefited TEls with large enrolments and prejudiced wananga with rolls well below a thousand EFTS (the critical number for self-sufficiency) in the early stages of their establishment.21 The capital base of wananga was too small to operate effectively under the post-1990 funding system.22

Consequently classrooms were overcrowded and even basic equipment, such as desks and chairs, was in short supply.

The wananga engaged McKenzie Podmore Limited to make the

358 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

financial case for their claim. McKenzie Podmore found that the EFTS funding mechanism did not provide a sufficient capital component for wananga to operate on an equitable basis with other TEIs. In order to survive, wananga resorted to a combination of strategies, using low­quality facilities, fewer or lower-paid tutors and kaiawhina. Wananga also charged tuition fees but, given the nature of their client base of low-paid workers and welfare beneficiaries, the fees were often set at a lower level than those of other TEIs. Financial reports from Pricewaterhouse­Coopers indicated that both Te Wananga 0 Raukawa and Te Whare Wananga 0 Awanuiarangi were in a weak financial position and not capable of investing in capital works.23

Notwithstanding the change in capital funding after 1990, the Ministry of Education made ad-hoc capital injections to Northland Polytechnic in 1996 ($578,000) and Wairarapa Community Polytechnic in 1994 ($629,560). In 1997 the plight ofTe Wananga 0 Aotearoa was so desperate that it applied for a capital injection. The Minister of Education declined the application on the ground of budget constraints.24 This denial of equal treatment underpinned the claim to the Waitangi Tribunal.

The tribunal found that the Crown had breached the Treaty in failing to honour its obligation to protect Maori rights to tertiary education. The Maori pedagogy in wananga was a taonga inextricably linked to te reo Maori and matauranga Maori. The Crown had failed to protect and support its Treaty partner through the EFTS system of funding. The tribunal recommended a one-off payment of a capital sum to each of the wananga sufficient to cover the real cost of bringing the buildings, plant and equipment of the various establishments up to a standard comparable with other TEIs and commensurate with the needs of their existing and anticipated rolls over the next three years.25

Two of the wananga made immediate use of the capital funding from the Ministry of Education. Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa built a new adminis­tration centre in Te Awamutu that set a benchmark for integrating modern architectural design with Maori decor. The Maori carvings, sculpture and visual art decorating the wananga bear testimony to the excellence of the institution's teaching in this field. The capital grant also enabled the wananga to make a substantial investment in a business school library and research centre in Hamilton. One of the most stunning examples of cultural recovery; exhibited in the foyer of the original factory building, is a wall mural depicting the universe, complete with the Maori names of galaxies, stars, comets, Magellanic clouds, constellations and nebulae. There is nothing like it in the

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 359

voluminous literature of the Maori, as it was constructed by the artists from interviews with local kaumatua.

Te Whare Wananga 0 Awanuiarangi used its capital grant to upgrade its administration centre and library and to build a modern lecture theatre, with state-of-the-art information technology equipment, and a science laboratory. The wananga also bought a nearby house for conversion into a centre for post-graduate study, and the Manor Inn Motel across the road for staff accommodation, seminars and a conference centre.

Te Wananga 0 Raukawa held its decision on accessing the capital funding while it considered its options.

Maori Participation in Tertiary Education

Maori participation in tertiary education increased slowly from 10.7 per cent in 1994 to 13.9 per cent in 2000. The majority of Maori school­leavers, 12.1 per cent, went to polytechnics compared with 14.9 per cent for non-Maori. Only 10.2 per cent of Maori went to university compared with 28.4 per cent of non-Maori. The wananga's share of school-Ieavers was 1.2 per cent,26 but this figure might be misleading since the majority of wananga students are mature adults and second­chance learners.

One of the primary objectives of Rongo Wetere at Te Wananga 0

Aotearoa was to increase Maori participation in tertiary education. The other two wananga, Awanuiarangi in particular, concentrated more on developing academic programmes than on growing student numbers. Consequently their enrolments.were around 1,000 (Awanuiarangi) and 2,000 (Raukawa). Enrolments at Aotearoa in 1998-99 were similar. Then Wetere embarked on a course of rapid expansion. In 2001 Aotearoa's equivalent full-time enrolments increased to 6,118, and in 2002 more than trebled to 20,768.27 In 2003 enrolments were up again to over 24,000 and rising to 30,000. As indicated earlier, most of these students are at levels 1-4 of the Q!Ialifications Framework. At this point Aotearoa became a victim of its own success as the Ministry of Education put a cap on the number of equivalent full-time students it would fund.

The cap on Aotearoa numbers contradicted the Tertiary Education Strategy 'that the Crown is committed to working with Maori to achieve their education aspirations'.28 It also contradicted the demand for Maori participation as a performance indicator for TEls.29 Just as Prime Minister Helen Clark found resistance to closing the gaps because they were structurally embedded, so did Te Wananga 0

360 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

Aotearoa. The rationale for the cap was concern that rapid expansion might put programme quality at risk. There was also the unstated fear that Aotearoa was taking students away from mainstream TEIs. Both concerns were unfounded, since the wananga had only three degree programmes, the first being accredited by NZQA in 2001 and the others in 2003. Most of the wananga's students on the Mahi Ora, Te Ara Reo Maori and the Kaihoe Waka programmes were at levels 1-3 of the Q!Ialifications Framework. They were unlikely candidates for direct entry into universities or polytechnics. Nor was quality an issue at this level of teaching. In other words, Aotearoa was bringing new students

. into tertiary education, many of whom have the potential to be staircased into higher education at other TEIs.

Treaty Compliance Audits

The Hawke Report's advocacy of the recognition of Maori claims to education under the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi had wider ramifications than the wananga's claim for equal funding along with mainstream TEIs. The insinuation of the Treaty into the domain of education along with the advent of Tomorrow's Schools required TEIs by law to take account of the Treaty of Waitangi. The defining documents of TEIs, including mission statements, charters and profiles, required them to declare their intentions in relation to the Treaty.

The New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit (NZUAAU) established a paradigm for Treaty compliance as a subsection of general audits of universities. Its salient features include:

• Maori participation in decision-making at all levels • channels for consultation between senior managers and other staff • regular consultation with tangata whenua • iwi and other appropriate input into charters and profiles • visible symbols of Maori culture • Treaty policies being understood, effectively executed and

monitored • staff development courses on Treaty awareness • appropriate support for Maori staff • support mechanisms for Maori students • relevant courses dealing wit~ Maori aspects of knowledge and

culture • provision for assessment in Maori • support for relevant research projects.30

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai 361

After the first round of general audits, universities realised that they had to do more than make a ritual bow to the Treaty in their charters. Bland statements of recognising, affirming or adhering to the 'principles of the Treaty' without indicating what that meant by way of changes in the culture of the institution to meet Maori educational needs were not enough.

The University of Auckland responded to the NZUAAU's first general audit by developing a comprehensive Treaty of Waitangi policy in its 2001 Mission Goals and Strategies. The objectives of the policy were to:

• confirm that both Maori and Pakeha were encompassed by the Treaty with mutual rights and obligations to each other

• ensure that Maori are effectively represented and participate in the structures and corporate life of the university

• empower Maori with the opportunity to assume increased responsibility and control over the means of meeting their own needs in the university

• promote engagement in research according to kaupapa Maori as well as mainstream activity

• recruit and provide for the learning needs of Maori students • encourage and promote national aJ.?d international collegial

relationships with other tertiary institutions.3~

The university took seriously the recommendation to empower Maori by appointing a tumuaki Maori with appropriate status in its management structure. The University of Auckland was the first to establish the post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor Maori (PVCM) in 1996. The lead taken by Auckland was followed successively by the Auckland University ·of Technology, the University of Waikato and Victoria University. Massey University was the last to establish a PVCM in 2003.

The first assignment of the PVCM at Auckland was to conduct a Treaty ofWaitangi compliance audit. This made twenty-two recommen­dations in two categories, sixteen for structural improvement and six for structural change. The most salient of the structural improvement recommendations were:

• that equity of access is the key principle to be understood and generated across all faculties, schools and departments of the university so that, at every selection point from the beginning to the completion of a degree, the principle of equity is applied

• that faculties, schools and departments with high entry requirements, or specific subject requirements that culminate in low Maori student recruitment, be required to develop special

362 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

entry schemes such as MAPAS32 to improve Maori (and Pacific Island) recruitment

• that an Assistant Dean (Maori) be appointed to manage the Faculty of Arts' commitments to Maori in the 2001 Mission Goals and Strategies

• that the Professor of Music together with the ethno-musicologist in Anthropology consider ways and means of establishing a teaching programme in Maori musicology

• that a chair in Maori Education be established to provide academic leadership in Te Aratiatia (Maori Education Unit in the School of Education), to promote research into Maori educational under-achievement and to develop intervention strategies to improve Maori educational performance

• that the Department of Psychology develop strategies for recruitment and training of Maori clinical psychologists.

The recommendations for structural change concerned the establish­ment of a wananga within the university to be presided over by a runanga.33

The NZUAAU audited the University of Otago in 1996. The audit found that the university's relations with the tangata whenua in the South Island were not good. There·was no recognition of mana whenua or even inclusion of the Ngai Tahu dialect in the language teaching programme. Nor was there recognition of Ngai Tahu kawa in the protocols of the university. The audit identified a need to recruit and train Maori administrators and to represent Maori and Treaty interests at all levels of university governance. It recommended replacing the Maori Affairs Board, an advisory body to the university council, with a Treaty of Waitangi standing committee. These findings reflect the monocultural ethos ofTEIs in the South Island compared with those in the North Island, where the denser Maori population has an impact on the culture of TEIs with campus marae being the symbolic evidence of that impact.

The University of Otago responded to the NZUAAU's findings by commissioning an independent auditor to do a full Treaty audit. The auditor on arrival was surprised not to receive a mihi from Ngai Tahu elders, a procedure that is standard practice in the North Island. Not surprisingly, the audit reiterated the findings of the NZUAAU and made twenty-eight recommendations to improve the university's relations with mana whenua and Maori representation in its governance and manage­ment. The most important recommendation backed up the NZUAAU

Ka Mau Tonu te Whawhai I 363

proposal for establishing a standing committee on the Treaty of Waitangi. This audit was more explicit in spelling out what was required:

The Treaty kaupapa of the University in the Charter and 2000 document is well founded. The University now needs to implement the kaupapa by 'walking the talk' to hring about successful outcomes for. Maori. This means effecting a change in the culture of the university from its ethnocentric and monocultural view of reality, to embrace the bicultural world of the University's Maori Treaty partner. A committee with mana, which is built into the hierarchy of the university management and governance to replace the Maori Affairs Board, is needed to effect the necessary change in the culture of the institution and to monitor the University's performance of its Treaty obligations.

It is suggested that the membership of the Treaty of Waitangi Committee be comprised of:

• The Assistant Vice Chancellors of the four divisions of the University

• One nominee from the Kaunihera Runanga (of Ngai Tahu) • The Runanga 0 Ngai Tahu member on Council • The Professor of Maori Studies • The Director of the Ngai Tahu Health Research Unit in Health

Science • The President of the Maori Student Association The placement of this committee, between the Divisions and Senate,

will ensure that it is in the information flow from Departments and Divisions through to Senate and on to Council and the Kaunihera. The Kaunihera will then have meaningful work to do in having oversight (on behalf of Ngai Tahu) over Treaty policy. The Maori members of the Committee will take the lead in generating Treaty policy while the AVCs will implement it in their divisions.34

Because of their size, large institutions have a great deal of inertia, making it difficult to change their culture. In November 2002 the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) did a trial audit of the charters and profiles of sixty TEIs ,throughout New Zealand. The University of Otago management team which participated in the trial mentioned the establishment of the Treaty of Waitangi Committee as one of its com­pliance measures. Inadvertently, they admitted to subverting the recom­mendation that the AVCs be on the committee by replacing them with members of the University Council. Council members as lay people are not part of the internal structure of the university and are therefore not in positions of power, as the AVCs are, to make sure that Treaty compliance measures are implemented further down the university's hierarchy.

364 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

Furthermore, when Te Maire Tau, the head of Nga Tapuwae 0 Rehua,35 proposed a Treaty compliance paradigm to the University of Otago, it was rejected. Tau subsequently resigned and severed his connections with the university. The matter was subsequently brought to the attention of Dr John Cummings, chief executive of the NZUAAU. Tau, along with the university's Treaty auditor, met with Cummings to revamp the unit's paradigm for Treaty compliance using Tau's document as a template. Thus, Otago University would in the end be subject to the Treaty compliance document it should have adopted in the first instance.

Notwithstanding Otago's resistance to meaningful change to comply with the Treaty of Waitangi, the encouraging feature of the TEC's trial audit was the awareness among those conducting the audit of the nature of the Treaty discourse and the central role that the Treaty has in the emancipation of Maori from the legacy of colonisation. While the general public is in a state of bemused ignorance and ennui over Treaty claims, the legal reforms attendant upon the Treaty, combined with institutional transformation within the education system and other state bureaucracies, are transforming the country into a more mature and bicultural state of nationhood. That bicultural state is a necessary precondition for multiculturalism following the influx of immigrants from all corners of the earth.

In 2000 the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT), at the instigation of the Komiti Tangata Whenua, a sub-committee of the Academic Committee, appointed an amorangi to its management team. The amorangi is the polytechnic's equivalent of the university's Pro-Vice­Chancellor Maori. The amorangi persuaded the management team to conduct a Treaty compliance audit of the institute. MIT was commended by the audit panel for the measures it had taken in the previous decade. These included the establishment of Te Tari Matauranga Maori with modern buildings and an associated marae complex, the establishment of the Komiti Tangata Whenua to oversee the incorporation of Maori content, where appropriate, in academic programmes, and the appoint­ment of an amorangi and kaumatua. Within Te Tari Matauranga Maori is a Treaty ofWaitangi Unit that provides Treaty training internally for staff and does external contracts for local body and government agencies. These Treaty compliance measures were instituted only in the previous seven years under the management of the Chief Executive, Dr Jack MacDonald. The audit panel made twenty-seven recommendations to improve Maori participation in governance, management and student recruitment and retention.36 MacDonald appointed a member of the executive to oversee and tick off the implementation of the

Ka Mau Tonu te ·Whawhai 365

recommendations. MIT subsequently received a pass mark on Treaty compliance from its general audit by the New Zealand Polytechnics Programme Committee in 2002.

Notwithstanding MIT's good Treaty compliance record, the transformations it made were concessions to Maori within its own comfort zone. 37 For instance, payment for meeting attendance by runanga members gave that body long overdue recognition of the contribution from members of the community to the institute. It was a small price to pay for the recognition of'tino rangatiratanga'. It is a moot point whether the Treaty compliance transformations are enough for MIT to match Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa's ability to recruit Maori students in large numbers and to elicit support from the Maori community to the extent that they take 'ownership' of the institution. At a management training seminar MacDonald recognised that MIT would have to 'do something different' to match Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa, thereby setting the stage for further transformation of the institution.

In 2000 the late Irihapeti Ramsden persuaded the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) to engage an independent auditor to do a Treaty compliance audit on the college. The rationale for doing so was the same as for the TEIs, that the RNZCGP is an extension of kawanatanga under the first article of the Treaty. It is therefore appropriate that they be interrogated on what they do to balance the power they exercise through kawanatanga by includ­ing tino rangatiratanga under Article 2 in their operations. The RNZCGP is a relatively new institution compared with other arms of the state, becoming independent from its parent body, the British Royal College of General Practitioners, in 1974. The years following its establishment were the most tumultuous and transforma­tional era in the history of Maori-Pakeha relations. The college, being concerned with advanced professional qualifications, was relatively untouched by the changes occurring around it and, belatedly, wanted to catch up.

The entrenched education gap between Maori and Pakeha that is evident in TEIs was also present in the RNZCGP, as noted by the auditor:

All institutions of the state including universities, of which the RNZCGP is an extension, are implicated in the exercise of power over Maori. Notwithstanding their claim to objectivity and political neutrality, educational institutions are also implicated in the reproduction of social hierarchies of the culture within which they are embedded. The

366 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

disparities between Maori and Pakeha discussed above are conspicuously evident in the ranks of the medical profession.38

Only 2.3 per cent (i.e. 198 doctors) were described as Maori in the 2000 Medical Workforce Survey (out of 8,615 registered doctors).39

Because of the shortfall in Maori doctors, this gap is also evident in the distribution of power in the RNZCGP hierarchy. There were no Maori on the college's council. The reasons for this are complex. Only fellows of the college are eligible for election and to vote for the council. To qualify as a fellow, GPs have to sit a Primex examination and undertake advanced study. This was difficult for Maori doctors working with Maori health providers or iwi health services. Most worked long hours, including weekends, and were not able to get locums. The college, realising the need for Maori representation, co-opted two Maori doctors onto the council. But, not being fellows, they had no power to· vote. The Treaty discourse between Maori and Pakeha for balancing the principles of 'kawanatanga' and 'tino rangatiratanga' is now so far advanced that Maori can no longer be placated by co-option as advisors. They want a meaningful share of power and decision-making in the affairs of the nation. For this reason the auditor saw the appoint­ment of Maori advisors to the council, along with the appointment of Maori doctors· as associate teachers in the college, as a temporary measure, pending the development of a pool of Maori fellows for both the council and the teaching programme. The auditor recommended that the college's constitution be amended to provide for 'tino rangatiratanga' by appointing two Maori members to the council with full voting rights. Te Ora, the association of Maori GPs, would have the responsibility of devising an electoral process among its members.40