Power-up: “fixing” Pasifika students

Well the Ministry of Education are up to their usual acculturalistic and assimilationist activities yet again. This time they’re out in Pasifika communities setting up ‘power stations’ that act as homework centres in churches in Porirua, south, west and east Auckland. Cleverly they’ve gone out and recruited Pasifika tertiary students under the guise of giving back to the community. They’ve duped church leaders and ministers into believing that opening their churches is for the good of the community and of course our leaders have been drawn into this intricate plan: the plan to make us palagi so that the government reaches its goal of students achieving NCEA level 2. The government’s education commitment is to the cause of re-election, not for the desire of changing an education system that remains neo-colonial.

Seve-Williams (2009) doctoral thesis discusses the need to understand the notions of egalitarianism and merit from a non-western perspective. Her study accounts for the voices of Pasifika students and their experiences in higher education. The NZ education system is premised on egalitarianism and Seve-Williams takes a critical approach to what that means for learners of diverse backgrounds who do not represent the privilege that comes from being part of the dominant culture in society reflected in schools (see Bourdieu 1976; Freire 1974). It is within this context that she (along with many other indigenous writes) invites a more critical approach to the function of education in society. Our young people bring diverse, rich and deeply critical knowledge to the classrooms and its high-time that knowledge was recognised and learned.

Whilst the theory noted above is hardly anything new to most people who’ve read a book or two over the last 200 years, it remains a mystery to me to see the Ministry of Education continuing its work that merely reinforces the idea that Pasifika students need to be more ‘western’ or Palagi to succeed. I don’t see this lot setting up homework centres anywhere else in the community and I don’t see them recruiting tutors for Palagi students. So whilst on the surface this all seems really nice, the practice is assismilationist. If the ministry spent more time diversifying its curriculum, making more scholarships available for trainee teachers, increasing indigenous educational resources, strengthening culturally responsive teaching pedagogies and reviewing its assessment practices then they’d achieve more in the long run. But this persistence of trying to fix Pasifika students and their families is nothing short of polite racism.

There are numerous Pasifika staff at the ministry. Will someone please stand up? Our people look to you to provide leadership and courage to fight the neo-colonial practices that continue. So whilst these Power stations might look and feel good, they’re yet another attempt to fix our kids. It’s the system that needs urgent attention and perhaps the people who need to be attending the power stations, are the Minister and her staff. In the meantime, we send our kids along to a brainwashing exercise that (mis)leads them into believing that this government cares about them.