A Pacific sad story
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
w E L L I N G T O N
THE figures tell the sad story of
Pacific Islands youngsters’ partici
pation and achievement levels in the New Zealand education system. Nearly half the island population over 15 leaves school with no qualifications and only one-in-five go on to tertiary education.
Although more are going to school and
staying on longer, rising participation has
not translated into rising achievement lev els.
In the 1993 School Certificate exami nations, for instance, only 8 per cent of Pacific Islands students won an A or B grade (against 29 per cent of the total) and 70 per cent received a D or E grade (com pared with 41 per cent of all candidates), The Ministry of Education sums up the situation: “It is a population at risk of con tinuing under-achievement in education, of alienation in classrooms and classroom practices, of unequal educational opportu nities and of being unable to access resources and information.”
Given that a better education is the key to improving the employment prospects of island youngsters, thereby helping the community breaking out of its poverty cycle, changing this situation is critical.
The Education Ministry has, for the first time, and some say, belatedly, pro duced a formal plan for developing Pacific Islands education in New Zealand.
It is only a draft at this stage and wise ly is being refined in consultation with the island community. It will be given a high priority, said ministry head Dr Maris O’Rourke, noting that island social indica tors on health, employment and income levels illustrate the need for urgent action.
“We have to break this cycle,” she said, “and we believe early intervention is the way to go.” The strategic plan starts at the
earliest stage of education. It notes that while 9.3 per cent of children under five are from island families, only one-in three are enrolled in early childhood ser vices. About 44 per cent of these go to language
groups, which the ministry hails as a suc cessful model for parents and children, with long-term benefits for continued edu cation in later years. It suggests they need to be developed in primary and secondary schools, where nearly 45,000 island stu dents are enrolled, if Pacific languages and culture are to be maintained and enriched.
Lesieli Tongati’o, a former Tongan teacher employed two years ago as the ministry’s first Pacific Islands Adviser, is in charge of the programme. She told me that while education was a high priority for Pacific Islands people, surveys had revealed they were falling for a variety of reasons. “The statistics don’t really bear out the importance Pacific Islands people put on education,” she said. “They want their children to do well, but they have problems with the systems.” A key one was the difficulty many parents had in attending school conferences “they are very busy trying to make ends meet” and understanding what resources are available for their children. Few join school boards of trustees.
“Sometimes the cultural environment is not very welcoming,” Lesieli said. “There is often a language barrier so they can’t
ask the right questions.” Students them selves tend to blame their parents for not
giving them enough support. Living condi
tions in many families are often such that they do not have any suitable space for study, and because they tend to work alone unlike Asian students, for instance they don’t have the advantage of peer assistance.
A shortage of Pacific Islands teachers compounds the problem for students who lack successful role models. An accent has been put on English, maths and science subjects because they tend not to partici pate in these as much as other students, and a Pacific Islands university student taken on as facilitator between teacher and pupils. A parent education programme has also been launched, with parents going to evening courses to leam how to support their children’s education.
Good intentions, but will it work? No, says John Russell, head of Mana College, near Wellington, where 22 per cent of the pupils are Pacific Islanders. The reason, he says, is the plan calls for more resources to be put into the 3.2 per cent of schools, mainly in Porirua and the Auckland area, where Pacific Islands students are in the majority. But the parents are increasingly opting to move their children out of those schools and into others with wealthier pop ulations and better grades.
Those schools are isolated from the island communities and will not be inter ested in adopting special measures to help them, Russell says.
So ironically, the island youngsters risk being further handicapped by their par ents’ desire to help them do better.
Once again, the Pacific Islands popula tion in New Zealand is in a Catch 22 situ ation. A