Pacific university course

Opinion

80 years in the making-finally a Pacific university course

It took 80 years to happen but a bit of Pacific history was made in Wellington this year, with the launch of the first major course in Pacific Studies at a

New Zealand university.

Apparently, it was suggested at Victoria University as long ago as 1920 and talked about many times over the years, but never gained the support or particularly the money needed to get it up and running.

No wonder then that Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Mark Gosche hailed its launch in the middle of March as a “landmark...a huge step in the journey New Zealand is taking as it recognises and respects its Pacific roots”.

As he pointed out, New Zealand’s education curriculum has been slow to recognise or value the culture and languages of the country’s mother region. Like many other people of Pacific Island extraction, when he was at school it was easier to learn Latin or French than te Reo Maori, Samoan or any other Pacific tongue.

Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin has been lecturing in Samoan studies at Victoria for some time and Auckland, often described as the biggest Polynesian city in the world, has a Pacific studies centre at its university and teaches some languages.

But Russell Marshall, a former minister of foreign affairs, Pacific Island affairs and education, and now chancellor of Victoria University, insists it is the first course in which undergraduates can major in Pacific Studies in this country.

And TeresiaTeaiwa, the dynamic young first lecturer, says there is not even a comparable undergraduate major course at the University of the South Pacific, where she lectured for five years before coming to Wellington.

The fact that 78 students (90 per cent of them Pacific Island people) registered for the first course indicates a high level of interest that augurs well for a significant new addition to New Zealand’s academic calendar.

More, it offers the prospect of improved recognition and understanding of the country’s Pacific heritage. Gosche stressed the course was not just for Pacific Island students, but for all New Zealanders “if we are to truly live the assertion that Aotearoa New Zealand is a Pacific nation”.

In true Pacific style, much of the credit for getting it up and running is due to Professor Ngahuia Te Awaekotuku, head of the School of Maori Studies at Victoria, who confesses to a special affection for island people..

She obtained her doctorate at the East_West Centre at the University of Hawaii, did much of her field work in Samoa and the Cook Islands and, she says, came to recognise Pacific people “as

part of my own Maori family”.

“I have a great respect for the Pacific, its scholarship and traditions,” she told me. Combine this with an inherent belief that the university has a “responsibility” to offer subjects of Pacific interest and she was bound to push hard for it.

Wellington has a richness of resources that do not exist anywhere else in New Zealand, she said, citing the National Archives, Turnbull Library, film and broadcasting archives and Te Papa Museum, all with a wealth of historical material on the Pacific.

Additionally and this is of particular potential importance to the island countries.

Wellington, as the capital city, has the wheels of government and the diplomatic community that provide a significant backdrop to Pacific students who may wish to administrative or political careers in the region.

Professor Te Awaekotuku was convenor of the working party that established the course, but said it would never have been achieved without the active support of the Pacific community in Wellington and the previous vice_chancellor Michael Irving who gave the vital guarantee of funds that had never been given before.

Now naturally the course is only going to be as good as its tutors and in this respect everyone agrees it has an excellent head start in TeresiaTeaiwa, who Professor Te Awaekotuku describes as “an experienced and colourful teacher and communicator”.

“We needed someone who can arrest the students’ attention, sustain it and nurture them,” she said,“and I think we have found her.”

Teresia certainly has impressive credentials. With roots in Kiribati, she grew up in Fiji, graduated from Trinity College, Washington DC, took a Master’s degree focussing on Pacific affairs at the University of Hawaii before starting a PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She then went back to Fiji to raise her son, Manoa (now six), before bringing him to Wellington to take up her new post.

She exudes enthusiasm about her job and talks about doing

“exciting and innovative things”.

These are unlikely to be confined to Wellington, because she has a mandate to work with other institutions both in New Zealand and the Pacific region.

Victoria University signed a cooperation agreement with the University of the South Pacific last year and her experience there makes that an obvious point of contact. “We think regionally and cooperatively,” she said.

And I would venture a prediction that she is a young lady who is going to make an impact far beyond the hallowed halls of Victoria University of Wellington. M

David Barber