How Does an 8% Fee Increase Support Māori/Pasifika Students
Wednesday, 24 October 2012, 12:09 pm
Press Release: The Maori Party
MEDIA STATEMENT
Te Ururoa Flavell
MP for Waiariki
Wednesday 24th October 2012
How Does an 8% Fee Increase Support Māori And Pasifika Students?
Māori Party education spokesperson Te Ururoa Flavell says using Māori and Pasifika students to justify university fee increases is outrageous and shows a lack of a coherent strategy for supporting Māori and Pasifika student achievement.
“We endorse the criticisms raised by Te Mana Ākonga (the National Māori Student Body) of Victoria University’s justification for an 8% fee increase. The university’s arguments suggest that, without such a big increase, there will be no programme of learning support for students. Does Victoria University believe that student support is not the university’s responsibility – that they will offer it only if the Government pays extra?”
The Māori Party expects that supporting Māori and Pasifika achievement should be threaded throughout their entire practice as an institution, as a marker of the institution’s commitment to cultural competency. If universities prioritised Māori achievement, then they would account for these programmes within their existing funding frameworks – not use Māori and Pasifika as an ‘added extra’ that they would like funding for.
“Of course, the support programmes they offer will be for those who can afford to enrol in programmes with increased fees – thereby widening the gap between those who can afford to succeed at university and those who cannot.”
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“The Tertiary Education Commission should also ask questions about the equity funding that universities already receive to support Māori, Pasifika and disabled students, and how the university has used that money to improve student outcomes.”
“This whole situation is reminiscent of the so-called Māori language factor funding that primary schools were allocated in the past, based on the numbers of Māori students enrolled. The funding was used as evidence of the Government’s commitment to revitalising Māori language through education. Suddenly schools were interested in how many of their students were Māori, which was good. But in the absence of a coherent Māori language policy, the money was apparently spent on unrelated things like sports equipment or school trips.”
“The under-representation and under-achievement of Māori students at universities is a serious problem for Māori development and universities must be able to demonstrate their own commitment to turning that around – and not simply use the problem to feather their own nests.”
ENDS
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