Matariki reminds us that we are connected to the land. We are also connected to each other through our shared vision for a thriving, well, more prosperous Aotearoa and Pacific, for better health outcomes for our whānau, for education to transform the lives of everyone – not just for some; and to be good ancestors for those that will follow us.
As we look ahead it is essential that AUT, and indeed New Zealand, has a strategy that answers the needs of our students, colleagues and stakeholders.
As we build this strategy we must be bold, and we must be courageous. We must set goals for ourselves that we might not achieve. We must be prepared to fail while we do everything we can to succeed.
More than any place I have worked, AUT is bold and has a spirit of adventure and innovation. To crystallise that spirit of adventure AUT will be addressing some wero, or key challenges.
The first regards the value of an education. Our students and our communities are asking deep questions about the future of education, and in particular their own future in education. These questions come in a way that has not been seen since the huge growth of university education led by the baby boomers. We must be ready with a compelling vision that speaks to our communities about the value of a university education and how it far outweighs its cost. And we will have to consistently demonstrate this.
AUT Vice-Chancellor Damon Salesa. Photo / Supplied
We must continue to share and grow our individual and collective excellence: through the quality of our teaching, through excellent research, through meaningful and enriching engagement we will continue to make education compelling, and our students will continue to reach their potential — winning, like our staff, major national and international prizes and scholarships.
New Zealand has long had about the worst school attendance in the OECD, but since Covid it has gotten even worse. We are living with the highest rates of truancy modern New Zealand has ever seen. So many young people are not attending school. Last year we had 2000 fewer UE graduates, even with Learner Recognition Credits. Our young people are telling us something. It is not straightforward, but we have to listen.
This matters to us, both because these may be students who will never get an opportunity to come to us, but also because it speaks to a disposition and questioning about education more broadly. Let us hear this challenge.
Our students and our whanau have missed out on more than a few classes, but also on holistic opportunities for learning, for relationships, for growth. These experiences are a powerful reminder of the holistic nature of education, and how the experiences we offer our students must continue to be exceptional, deep, transformative, relational.
The high cost of living and the challenges of studying under Covid have led many to go into, or stay, in the workforce. We will have to work hard to continue and grow our proud commitment to non-school leaver and mature students. This group has long looked to AUT, and from this group come many of our most celebrated graduates.
As we in the universities think, rightly, about finances, we should also think about the finances of students. Other countries like us have crippled future generations with student debt, and hidden within our own nation are many students who know this first-hand. We know many of our students have to work to support their studies. We know that a university education correlates with better life outcomes on pretty much all measures but we need to be ready to demonstrate this value for whānau, for industry, for our city and for our nation.
In a world where so many doors are shut for those with a true hunger for empowerment, for education, for transformation, AUT’s doors have remained, and will be, open. We must be ready.
My second wero is an invitation for us to think about our kaupapa as a Wananga Aronui, as a University of Technology.
We are New Zealand’s only University of Technology, and this is a critical distinctiveness we must continue to advance.
A university of technology will be known, as we are, by its employment-ready graduates; through its research focused particularly on real-world impact; by its close connections to and responsiveness towards industry and employers; by its spirit of enterprise and innovation; and by its focus on its rohe, in our case the diverse communities within Tāmaki Makaurau and Aotearoa. We are here to partner with them, whoever they may be, whenever they are ready.
Around the world we can witness how many institutions are reorienting themselves to better answer questions about value, impact and engagement, about ensuring that the teaching, learning and research they do connects to the societies in which they live.
AUT does not need this reorientation. We already offer 90 per cent of our students a workplace learning experience; relationships with industry and communities are many and strong, on this site, for almost 120 years, we have been teaching impactful, relevant knowledge. It is in our bones that we are an institution of applied knowledge.
Auckland's University of Technology produces work-ready graduates.
But while this is our whakapapa and our kaupapa, we must deepen what this means, and we must be bold about investing and growing in this way. We must remain dynamic and responsive and excellent, known to be a partner that uplifts others, that supports the wellbeing and prosperity of whānau, of business, and of our whenua and moana.
And we must do this in our unique and excellent way: led by our AUT values, and our renewed commitment to advance Te Tiriti; ensuring we creatively respond to the challenges before us, teaching and researching so that we ensure that our technological advance is educated by cultural, ethical and social knowledge and responsibility.
My third wero, my third challenge, to us is to continue to face into a radical transformation of student outcomes.
We already know that student success is critical to, and in part will define, our success as a university. This, too, is in the whakapapa of our university. Our explicit approach to student success is a journey we’ve been on since I arrived, when we collectively put together our experience and thinking to produce Ki Uta Ki Tai, our student success plan.
This is a sector-leading approach. But it needed to be. No other university has been so bold, and so courageous in the ways that we have engaged with, welcomed and uplifted students. This means that before Covid we had many students who looked deeply to us for support; since then the number has only grown.
AUT is also different to other New Zealand universities because of our radically diverse student composition: in age, in ethnicity, in socio-economic background, in the colours of the rainbow. Uniquely, we have an equal representation of those from the most advantaged, and least advantaged, backgrounds: all of whom are welcome here, and all of whom we support to thrive.
What we need to do is to keep getting better and better at teaching and supporting all our beautifully diverse students to follow their equally diverse pathways to success; so that they leave ready to make a difference, and already knowing how to thrive in culturally rich, diverse environments because that is what they have done their whole time here.
We must sustain and grow our ability to deliver exceptional, relevant and consistent learning experiences, in what is a profoundly changing world. We must undertake the research that supports this. For AUT there must be a deeper and even more innovative technology response; one that delivers on equity and excellence; one that understands the critical importance of relationships, engagement and intimate learning experiences; one that delivers human-scale teaching where students’ needs are known and met, where Te Tiriti and matauranga, diverse ways of knowing, teaching and connecting, infuse our university. And we must be open to changing what we teach and how, when and where we teach it.
We change the world one student, one act of research or knowledge, one whānau at a time.
As one educator who inspires me, wrote, “Education is an act of love, and thus an act of courage”. Let’s be courageous.
This speech was delivered at a Matariki event by Professor Damon Salesa. He is the vice-chancellor, Auckland University of Technology. Salesa is an interdisciplinary scholar who works on Oceania, especially history, politics and culture, and is a prizewinning author.
