Bob Edlin: Oh dear: look what the Government has done to the wananga..........

Oh dear: look what the Government has done to the wananga – but what about the cutbacks in humanities at Vic?

A tertiary education organisation with around 1,500 staff is about to cut its work force by 4 per cent.

We learned this from the Tertiary Education Union which identified the reason: it is citing “the National-led government’s assault on Māori as the underlying cause of a proposed net loss of 60 jobs at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa”.

An assault on Māori has triggered the wananga’s staff cuts?

Really?

Regardless of what might be the reality, consultations are under way with staff on a restructuring which – if confirmed – will disestablish 240 jobs and create 180 new positions.

The press statement required us to consult our te reo dictionaries to get an understanding of the impact.

It said:

The impacted jobs are in areas such as ako excellence, tauira attraction and experience, business development, IT, kaimahi experience and wellbeing, and strategy and transformation.

According to our dip into the translations:

• The word “ako” means both to “teach” and to “learn” in a reciprocal, relationship-based process. It represents the idea that the teacher is also a learner and the learner is also a teacher, fostering growth through shared experience

• “Tauira” has several meanings, including student, teacher, and model or pattern. It is also the name of a great voyaging canoe in Māori tradition and serves as the name for different educational and reporting initiatives, such as the University of Otago’s Tauira Māori Guide for prospective Māori health students and the XRB’s He Tauira framework for sustainability reporting.

• “Kaimahi” translates to worker, employee, or staff member. It can also mean “someone who does the work” and is often used to refer to those employed in a variety of fields, including social services, community work, and leadership roles in education. The term emphasizes the act of performing work and is frequently used in contexts that recognize the dedication and commitment of these individuals.

So far, so good.

But where’s the justification for the claim the job cuts result from a government assault on Maori?

It comes down to funding – or lack of it.

TEU Branch President at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Te Auta Sam-Turner, says kaimahi at the institution have mixed feelings about the proposal.

“We all want to see Te Wānanga o Aotearoa set up for success as a strong Kaupapa Māori driven organisation for future generations to benefit from, and in that sense a lot of the proposed changes are long overdue.”

They should have been introduced long ago, in other words.

“At the same time our members are facing uncertainty, and it is a difficult time for them – especially those in jobs that have been proposed disestablished.”

“Nobody likes to see job losses, and in this case the blame for the financial pressures Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is facing lie at the feet of the government. We have been underfunded for a long time and the assault by National, ACT and New Zealand First on all things Māori, but especially Te Reo, Social Development, teaching and health, all have flow on effects for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.”

The union’s National Secretary, Sandra Grey, says its members, across the tertiary education sector, want an education system that gives priority to Māori ways of being, doing and learning.

She maintains this is the only way to prepare all students for the future of New Zealand – “not the version of ‘Old Zealand’ this government is trying to cling to”.

The version which Grey’s union wants us to embrace, obviously, envisions a society where Maori ways of being, doing and learning are the over-riding influence.

But PoO staff recall Wellington’s Victoria University axing 229 jobs and cutting six language and geo-science courses “in an effort to save money” back in 2023.

Vic would no longer offer Greek, Latin, Italian, geophysics, geographic information science or physical geography.

Too bad – but (if we endorse Sandra Grey’s ideal for our future) there’s nothing too threatening to Maori culture in that lot.

Come to think of it, none of them would be missed in an academia geared to promote indigenous knowledge and ensure Maori ways of being, doing and learning are the pre-eminent cultural influences.

Eleven other courses were expected to achieve set targets as part of a managed financial plan, or meet the same fate. They were education, the English Language Institute, history, midwifery, workplace health and safety, Earth sciences, physics, theatre, modern languages, Master of design technology, and the New Zealand School of Music.

How many of them would be be missed?

The cuts would result in the University saving $22 million in staff costs. About a third of the jobs being lost were academic roles.

Tertiary Education Union branch president Dougal McNeill said staff and students were devastated. The university had ditched some of its more “reckless” plans, but more jobs and courses could have been saved, he said.

“There’s a real vacuum of leadership in the humanities here. Small subjects that could still be taught, even with the job cuts, are going – for example, Latin and Greek.

“Renowned music school facing a body-blow of staff cuts. The rush here and the ways in which this has been done has set us up for some really long-term damage,” McNeill said.

But he did not describe this as a government assault on non-Maori.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.