Te Pūkenga Leadership Shares Stories of Their Progress With Ara
28 October, 2020
Te Pūkenga Chair Murray Strong and Chief Executive Stephen Town visited Ara on 22 October as part of their progress around the country to visit all 16 of the organization’s subsidiaries.
Te Pūkenga, formerly known as the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, will be the world’s 35th largest tertiary institution, with around 240,000 learners and over 10,000 staff, so collaborative contributions from what were formerly stand-alone polytechnics and industry training organizations will be critical to the success of an organization that represents a substantial departure from past vocational education models in New Zealand.
The visit to Ara began with a session open to all Ara colleagues, including some 60 who attended remotely. Stephen spoke candidly about a number of key developments including the process underway to settle on a new Operating Model, work on a Unified Funding System and the recent release of Te Pūkenga’s, Te Tiriti o Waitangi excellence framework Te Pae Tawhiti. With this in mind Stephen shared a message he had previous expressed; namely that “…achieving equity is the right thing to do. It just makes sense. When we create a system that serves Māori well, it will serve all learners well.”
The prioritization of achieving equity for Māori learners aligns closely with the goals outlined within Ara’s own Framework for Māori Achievement.
The focus on equity was continued during the session held with students later during the morning. Gathering with learners from a range of disciplines and including Student Ambassadors and representatives from the newly-formed Māori Student council as well as those from PISA (Pacific Island Students at Ara), Stephen and Murray led a lively discussion that included sharing information about how Te Pūkenga will broaden and deepen Ara’s ability to provide appropriate support and other key resources for Māori and Pacific learners.
Te Pūkenga returns to Ara on the 9th and 10th of November when the ‘Ākonga at the Centre’ team, which is supporting the co-design of one of the organization’s transformation workstreams, comes to Ara to connect with, and hear from, learners.
As part of their national roadshow programme, the team will be visiting each region to share with colleagues learners, whānau and local communities a significant research project that seeks to identify both the success factors and the barriers that learners typically face when undertaking tertiary study.
The goal is to develop ‘learner journey maps’ which will then be useful in identifying the best possible future operating model for Te Pūkenga.