'Bums' doing a flip from burgers

MATHEW DEARNALEY looks at moves to usher Maori and Pacific Islanders into the knowledge economy.

When Chayse Brown left school in Manurewa a year ago, she had trouble convincing friends she was heading for a career in the information technology industry.

Her parents were among the sceptics, thinking the most they could hope for their daughter would be a secretarial job.

Now the 18-year-old is one of the top students in a pioneering Government-financed course aimed at redressing a lack of Maori and Pacific Island computer technicians.

Leaving school at the end of the seventh form was a scary prospect for Chayse, who says teachers warned her she would be a "bum" for the rest of her life unless she formed a clear idea of what she wanted to do.

"I didn't believe in myself and my family didn't want to know computers," she says.

"James Cook High is a good school but it's in Manurewa and people think students who go there will end up flipping burgers."

But the teachers had faith in her, recommending her for one of 15 places on a diploma of computer course, paid for under Skills New Zealand's Rangatahi Maia scheme at the Carich Training Centre in Manukau.

She has spent the past year exploring the innards of computer hardware as well as advanced software programmes, and hopes to get a start in the industry as a helpdesk technician.

Skills New Zealand has approved a second course for next year, and Carich has already received about 15 applications without advertising.

Tejae Bauckham's parents wanted him to join the Navy, but the Waiuku 17-year-old has accepted a trial job at an Auckland computer systems service company on an hourly starting rate of $17.

"If I had gone into the Navy I would probably be peeling potatoes. I was going to go in as a cook because that's all I knew I could do."

Carich regional manager Denise Babich acknowledges the job offer would be the envy of youngsters working in the fast-food industry for little more than $6 an hour, but says: "Tejae is very, very good."

She believes Maori and Pacific Islands people have a natural technical aptitude which should be exploited more by the IT industry.

The Carich course's main tutor, Simon Julius, says he has worked in the industry for nine years yet has never encountered a Maori or Pacific Islands computer technician, "which I think is a tragedy."

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia says the biggest barrier to his people's involvement in the knowledge economy is the fact that most are the children or grandchildren of manual labourers who have trouble appreciating the benefits of higher education.

At least one Auckland high-tech company is doing its bit to include Maori in the knowledge economy.

Vending Technologies, which has just listed on the Stock Exchange with a fully subscribed $7.5 million share float, has a young Maori computer programmer helping to develop "smart" vending machines able to dispense both hot and cold food and drinks.

It has also given a new lease of life to 53-year-old Teihi Tihi, a mechanical and electrical fitter who was laid off when an Otahuhu fertiliser works closed down and then struggled for 15 years on the dole interspersed with brief casual work.

Mr Tihi, who strips down imported second-hand machines before they are rewired for export to Australia, says he has become a changed man since the company hired him a year ago.

And he has cheered up his wife by using some of his wages to spruce up their modest home and garden.

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