Too many Pasifika students falling though cracks, says report

Too many Pasifika students are still being failed by New Zealand schools, says the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs.

A report on Education and Pacific Peoples in New Zealand, published by the ministry and Statistics NZ, charts some dramatic gains such as a 53 per cent jump in the past five years in the numbers of Pasifika students in year 13 - now a higher proportion staying to the last year of school than for Maori and Pakeha students.

Pasifika students leaving school with at least level two on the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) also leapt from 42 per cent in 2003 to 63 per cent in 2008 - now well ahead of Maori students (50 per cent) and closing fast on Pakeha (75 per cent).

But ministry head Dr Colin Tukuitonga said teachers were still guiding too many Pasifika students into dead-end subjects that did not lead to higher qualifications.

Only 13 per cent of Pasifika young people aged 18 and 19 were studying for bachelors' degrees or above last year, compared with 27 per cent of Pakeha of the same ages.

"By and large Pacific students are spinning around in pre-degree courses. They are not progressing on to other things," Dr Tukuitonga said.

"One of the reasons is that young people don't get the right kind of advice whilst they are in secondary school about subject choices which then eliminate them from considering further study."

Dr Tukuitonga cited Education Review Office finding in that year that only 14 per cent of New Zealand schools were fully effective for Pasifika students.

"Just because they're sitting there in the classroom doesn't mean they're learning," he said.

The report says the problem starts before school. The proportion of school entrants who have attended preschool education is lower for Pasifika children (85 per cent) than for any other ethnic group, well behind even Maori (91 per cent).

In contrast to the Maori kohanga reo movement, only 11 per cent of Pasifika preschool students are in Pacific-language or bilingual centres, and the Education Review Office found in 2007 that "in most cases the teaching and learning practices in Pacific services did not adequately support sustained, complex play and learning or the critical and creative thinking essential for success at school".

At school level, the recent consultation on national standards found that Pacific parents were more likely than any other group to say it was very important to help their children learn. But many schools failed to reach out to those parents.

"Many schools only make contact with Pacific parents when something bad has happened," the report says.

PASIFIKA'S SHARES
* School students: 9.7 per cent
* Elected school trustees: 3.8 per cent
* Teachers: 2.6 per cent
* Principals: 1.2 per cent

ON THE WEB
www.mpia.govt.nz