Charting the origins, current status and new directions within Pacific/Pasifika education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This essay charts (and critiques) the formal education of Pacific-heritage peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. As a diverse minority group, the education of Pacific-heritage peoples has been an explicit strategic priority for the Ministry of Education for over two decades, although the provision and experience of education for and by Pacific-heritage peoples in this country has, at the very least, a fifty year whakapapa. The author traces the current position of Pacific peoples using a broad socio-historical lens anchored in post-structural analysis principles, with an indigenous Pacific philosophical cast,  in order to present a critique of the past that illuminates the present. Why is this important? The author argues that a deepened knowledge of such developments is an imperative for informed decision making in policy and practice, and for the research that should inform both.