Wanted urgently: more Maori geeks

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

More Maori geeks are needed as role models to encourage Maori into computer science, IT and telecoms, say education experts.

While Maori participation in tertiary education has almost doubled from 32,825 in 1999 to 62,574 in 2003, according to the Education Ministry, feedback from the major tertiary providers show that IT-related courses are still less popular than subjects such as law, commerce and medicine.

Dr Pat Riddle, senior lecturer in computer science at Auckland University, said the department was trying to increase the number of Maori students.

Riddle, who is responsible for equal opportunities in the department, said the situation was similar to when she arrived seven years ago as the second female lecturer.

Computer science in all its forms had been dominated by men but now there are about eight women in the department, she said. "You can't just go and recruit Maori from overseas in the way that I was brought on board from North America," said Riddle.

The lack of role models was important because students looked for reasons to study in a particular area.

"It can be isolating for students if they are a minority in a classroom," she said. "With the influx of Asian international students coming to the computer science faculty Pakeha New Zealanders are trending down in participation numbers even more so than Maori.

"If the Asian international figures are taken out then Maori participation is increasing more than European but it has to be better."

Riddle said cultural or whanau pressure on Maori students attending university had tended to push them into law or commerce where they felt they could make a difference for their community.

Mark Laws, head of computer and information science at the Whakatane university Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Maori, said his organisation's e-Pakeke or senior net courses were oversubscribed.

Maori were moving into computing, he said, but it was taking time.

"It's a pretty new subject in the scheme of things."

Alan Groves, managing director of AIA, a joint venture start-up with Craig Sopher, founder of Compudign, and lawyer Maui Solomon, said many of the best Maori brains were going into law and commerce because of the perception that they could make more impact there.

Groves said attitudes held by many primary and secondary educators that Maori were a non-mathematical or scientific race were responsible for the shortages in this area.

"Science and maths are not natural disciplines for anyone and need to be nurtured," he said.

"Te Whanau a Apanui is a prime example of an organisation that is training Maori with skills in Cisco networking," said Groves, "but hardly anyone knows about it."

The students emerging from it showed there was huge potential, he said.

Tony Clear, academic leader at the Auckland University of Technology School of Computer and Information Sciences, said Maori made up about 5 per cent of courses in his department.

It was hard to produce an accurate figure, he said, because people could choose to opt out of classifying themselves as Maori.

According to Clear, as many as 30 per cent of students did not declare their ethnicity.

From about 1000 students in a mix of full- and part-time courses, 5 per cent were Maori and the number was slowly increasing, he said.

Clear said it was too simplistic to criticise Maori participation when across the school of computing women were also not featured in huge numbers.

AUT was keen to enrol more Maori students, he said, and to a certain extent that would come over time.

"It's really important to recognise that a maths and science base from school makes it much easier for students wanting to pursue careers in this area."

Clear said that at a recent Wellington meeting an IT firm had said it was screaming out for Maori software developers.

Dr Peter Donelan, head of Victoria University's School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences, also wants to recruit more Maori students.

Victoria has introduced a programme to enrol students in this area.

Donelan said any group would make choices based on their cultural and social imperatives but hopefully more Maori would look at IT-related study as good for their development.

He said it was critical that tertiary educators removed barriers to study but also of importance was a need for better maths and science teaching at primary and secondary schools.