NZ: PM Key encourages Māori, Pasifika education at AUT media opening

AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Prime Minister John Key today opened the Sir Paul Reeves media and education building, which houses AUT University’s School of Communication Studies.

In his seven-minute speech at the opening, Key used the opportunity to honour the late Sir Paul Reeves, Chancellor of AUT University and a former Governor-General.

Key also underlined the importance of Māori and Pasifika education in New Zealand. Both groups have a lower number of tertiary education compared to the rest of the population:

Sir Paul had a great passion for education, but he also had a very strong belief in ensuring that Māori and Pacific New Zealanders had an opportunity to success and do well.  And in the conversations that I had with him, he always wanted to talk to me about the achievement of young Maori and Pacific youth, and their capacity to make sure that they participated in society and had equal opportunities and equal advancement.

And all I can say is he was absolutely on the right track, because when we look at New Zealand society – especially education system – we should be pretty proud of what we’re achieving. Whether it’s it at a secondary, a primary secondary or tertiary level. In fact, New Zealand provides world class education, and should be proud of its students.

But nevertheless we actually still see a large number of Māori and Pacific youth, who are either not engaged in tertiary education at the level we want, or are not achieving out of secondary school the level of qualification that we would want. The government is working really hard attainment levels and make sure that we encourage youngsters to do that, but there’s more work to be done.

We happen to live in a world where the days of unskilled labour are very quickly disappearing from our shores. I mean our youngsters need to get a world-class education, they need to have the skills, and they need to be able to compete. By 2025 one in two youngsters going to primary school in New Zealand will be of Māori and Pacific ethnicity, and we need them to be obtaining NCA level 2 and above at the same rate of all New Zealanders.

And that’s really the challenge I think for the government is to keep pushing that level of ambition, and making sure that as a society we’re well educated and well skilled to succeed. And we rely enormously on our universities to do that.

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