Equity in STEM Symposium

[Judge Andrew Becroft appears on stage in a black suit and tie]
[Speaks in te Reo Māori]

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā rangatira, e ngā kuia, e te iwi o te rohe, e ngā hau e wha, tēnā koutou, mihi mai, karanga mai. He pai ki te kōrero ki a koutou e tēnei rā. Talofa lava, malo e lelei, fakalofa lahi atu, kia orana, nisa bula vanaka, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. 

Imagine, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility, that the Minister of Education or the Minister of Social Development or even the Prime Minister was to ask you, "What is your vision for out of our New Zealand's children?"

It's a good question. As we start this conference, a big picture question, when the Book of Proverbs says "Where there is no vision, the people perish, a group atrophies, it's paralyzed. Makes no progress, though starting point surely is what is your vision? I want you to take one minute with the person next to you or less and say what would be your vision overall and then I'll tell you mine.

[Judge Andrew Becroft moves to talk to a woman on the stage as two more people enter the stage. Background noise of the audience chattering and clinking cups.]

I would love. I would love that we had more time and I would love to hear your answers. And I used to talk about Martin Luther King's vision and his great speech in 1963, and someone said, Andrew, why don't you have a vision for Aotearoa? So I've got one and it's a T-shirt. Some of you know, I like to model the T shirts.

Question for you is, here is it, Who is it? Where is it? This is a good, I think, New Zealand vision. Where's the clicker? Right. This is it. You know, when it was? 1975. Dame Fiona Cooper, "Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear. Take care of what they see. Take care of what they feel.  For how the children grow. 
So will be the shape of Aotearoa." That's a wonderful three-fold challenge to bear in mind. And Glenis and I would drop everything to come to a group such as this because whether you see it in these terms or not, in your work with an education in the STEM subjects, you are growing a nation and it's a wonderful opportunity.
You are unlocking the door. Graham Greene, the author, said "There's always a moment in childhood when an adult for a child opens the door and lets the future in." mind when in the best sense that is what you are a door witness to a future nation builders. And it's a wonderful opportunity. And the title of the talk we were asked together to talk about inequity for children in New Zealand.
And, you know, we didn't put a question mark after the title. UNICEF in 2018 said New Zealand had one of the most unequal education systems in the world. New Zealand has one of the most unequal education systems in the world, by which they mean the gap between those that achieve academically in our model one in our system and those that don't is one of the widest in the world, which of course takes place in a wider context in New Zealand of inequality.

And I can remember the day that my son came home and his first day in secondary school and said, Dad, I think I'm got a good class. You will be pleased or not in the cabbage class. And you know, I never knew what that meant. And he said, What's the cabbage class, son? He said, Oh, that's the thickos for whom there's no hope.

That's what he said, his own words. So there's something wired in. I'm talking seven years ago. Might have all changed, but there's something wired in that even kids get about expectations and inequality within our education system. And I think it's sad. But at the same time, what a vision and what an opportunity we have to do better.

And we decided, Glenis and I, that we do this together, because if we're talking about equality in a way, this is now small and rather stumbling first attempts within our own office and then the roles that we have to demonstrate. I hope equality and we are often talked about to the government: "Why can't we have co commissioners?"

And they said, "that sounds a good idea. Maybe we're not quite ready for that". I said, "Well, I can appoint an assistant Māori commissioner." They said  "Well, that's not a very good title." I said. "Of course it's not. Can we give a co commissioner?" And they said "Well might you be accused of, of, of trying to tie the government's hands?" Possibly Judge.

I said "Not might. No, not possibly. Absolute. Yes, that's what I want to do. I'd like to wire in a co-Māori non-Māori leadership model and we'll talk together from that experience ourselves." And we don't have all the answers and we're learning slowly, but it's been great to be able to do this and address these sorts of issues together.

00:06:33:10 - 00:06:54:10
Speaker 1
And I'll start off and I'll talk generally the context of inequality in New Zealand, perhaps we'll talk more specifically. I'm not an educational expert, but I wanted to challenge you, I guess, and encourage you on behalf of all children in New Zealand, and then I'll make some concluding comments. I'd love to say there's no contempt of court today.

You can interrupt challenge, shout out. It's a bit harder. I know if you think anything said that is discordant, but I certainly hope we have time for questions. But an initial question for you is how many under 18 year olds - That's the definition of children worldwide - How many under 18 year olds are there in New Zealand? Anyone want to guess?

I mean you are the intelligentsia of the country, STEM teachers! You'll know this.  How many under 18 year old either in New Zealand. Any guesses? A million have got a million on the table or have more than a million less than a million. 1.3? 1.5? I was at a Rotary Club once and that was 800000 to 2.4 million. This is the answer.

It's nearly a quarter of the population who at some stage you'll be dealing with, without much of a voice, and often seldom heard, certainly without a vote and not much influence. And I'm asked, "Well, how well do our New Zealand children do overall?" And there are three really good percentage figures that help explain that. 70% of our children do well and our position conditions of advantage materially well looked after, some do world-leadingly well.

Well when athletics competitions and New York hip-hop dance competitions and send Fran bronze medals at the Winter Olympics aged 16. I mean on any analysis, whether it's the UNICEF child or not, most of our kids do well and some do well, world-leadingly well. 20% however, struggle with adversity, in and out of adversity. And for them life is tough and 10%, know chronic, long-term, intergenerational, virtually permanent material hardship and disadvantage.

That's 123,000 New Zealand children and young people, who on a doorknock survey come from families without what most of us would call the basics. The basics that Eden Park filled up twice over with spectators, that many children. That is not the New Zealand I was brought up with when I went to Kilbirnie primary school, Evans Bay Intermediate, Rangatahi College.

We now know inequality in New Zealand as never before and any inequality in education action and inequality in education reflects that wider issue in New Zealand, where we now are much more diverse, stratified, marginalized New Zealand than was never the case and it didn't happen gradually. Let's bust that myth. It happened virtually overnight in the early 1990s, following the global financial crisis.

We took decisions to slash benefits and we've never made up the difference. And we have this, I think, mangled structure in New Zealand where it's great that we do well for over sixty fives. We do as well for them as nearly any country in the world, and that's terrific. We shouldn't change that, but we do relatively compared to what we do for old people, six times worse for under 18 year olds. We could if we wanted to change things. But as a country we haven't. And you'd have to say now in 2021, we have made some deliberate decisions to wire in inequality in our structures for children and young people. And you're at the front line of that.

And I don't need to tell you of the challenges and I need to tell you how fundamental STEM subjects are to that, to breaking that inequality. But it's sad, really, isn't it? And a country that could, if it wanted to do so differently for children, we haven't. We talk a great game, so wonderful vision the Prime Minister has for New Zealand to be the best place in the world to be a child.
It's wonderful. We're on track, slowly but surely to halve child poverty in 2028. But it needn't ever have been this way. And many of you, I think, are picking up the pieces.

Now, what's the underlying cause of that. We can have a great discussion about that.
I think Science, Technology, English and Math teachers would be capable of having that discussion maybe with Geography and History teachers would say they'd want to have it. But I say three things are behind that Seventy Twenty Ten - the inequality, the inequity that we're talking about, I mean,  my three and you would have your own three, I'm sure we've talked about that one.

Of course, being in the 10% isn't a life script for inevitable bad life outcomes. I'm not saying that. I mean, poverty doesn't cause bad life outcomes, we know that, but it certainly elevates the risk for bad life outcomes. And we know in the stat summary we don't want to come to deficit focus, but Māori and Pasifika are over-represented in that 10%, and that's an underlying cause.

I don't think we grasped nearly importantly enough how important the first thousand days are, not your area, but you inherit a situation when the first thousand days aren't capitalized on and focused. And we have to be honest, we still experience the enduring legacy of colonization and modern day systemic bias or racism. I mean, people don't like the C word; colonization, but it's the reality for our country.

And I used to talk about unconscious bias. And at a conference like this, a kuia stood up and said, Can I ask you a question, Judge? I said, "Sure". She said, "You know, you talk about unconscious bias, so, sort of it just drips off the tongue. But my definition of unconscious is when someone's knocked out horizontal on the floor, you talk about what you do when you're vertical and alive and well. How can you keep saying that is as unconscious?"

You know, we did a survey, quite a big study with children and young people, many of those who had been, I guess, dislocated from marginalized from education. Education matters to me. They used the word racism. We never asked them. We just said, what are some big issues for you? They used the R word adults in my generation tend to sugarcoat it a bit with 
 "systemic bias, unconscious bias, discrimination". Children and young people are very confident about naming it as racism. And you can look on the website and find the report. It is sobering reading.

The day it came out, I gave an interview was on the way north and we stopped at the Brown Sugar Cafe in Taihape and a teacher came up and said to me somewhat ominously, "You're Judge Becroft the children's commissioner. aren't you?" And I said, "Yeah."  "You've just given an interview and you've just given an interview this morning, haven't you? I said, Yep, you caught us racist teachers. I said, Actually, I didn't. I said, the children that we talked to called some of their teachers racist. I mean, one of the girls said, "what also puts me off are teachers telling me to give up, saying, I'm not going to pass level three without even checking my credits.
I sense stereotypes in my teachers eyes and gestures how they act towards me makes me feel like leaving." Samoan secondary school student. I said, Look, we just passing on the messages from children. You might find it interesting. I say to the website, have a read of it. To her credit. She got back that day and said, "I'm sorry, I misunderstood.
What the children are saying is powerful. We're having a meeting of our school this week to discuss it. Thank you for what you're doing."

All right. Now, children name racism as a significant issue. And I love this quote and I love the challenge that it represents. And it's why we're here today and we're talking about how we fix and address the education environment.
Some of the reason why we have one of the most unequal education systems in the world is beyond the control of teachers. I get that. But some isn't. I guess that's the question. What is it that is that is within our control. That can make a difference. I mean, you teach in the context where there is enormous inequity for Māori and Pasifika in the country and I mean this is this is not something to Labor and it's not something to celebrate.

And, in my daughter's terms it would be a bit of a "debuzz" to emphasize this, but it's important that we know, I mean, the stats tell their own sad story. It's great that ECE is showing signs of real reduction in disproportionality. And I mean, you can widen, widen the analysis. I mean, frankly, it is an international scandal that we even have rheumatic fever in New Zealand - fifth line down.

But more scandalous still is the disproportionality and the utter tragedy that is would have touched many of us indirectly of youth suicide. I mean, this is a side of New Zealand that we cannot avoid and have to face up to. And this is the context for your work. So having said I'm not an educationlist, can I just venture just as I close this beginning part of the presentation, can I just venture some comments with two slides?

The first is what many have called "the tramline gap" faced by tamariki Māori and for that matter, Pasifika. Taking the school deciles and marking them as quintiles with quintile one of course being the most disadvantaged, quintile five being the most advantaged and, Māori being the, the sort of orangey light orange line at the bottom it goes up by quintile, but so does the Pākeha, European and other line go up and it goes up at the same rate.

So whether it's quintile one or quintile five, the gap remains the same. Called The tramline gap, because it's just two sets of tracks that go at the same right. So that raises some questions if you factor out economic advantage, the gap still exists. So there must be a challenge there about how we are teaching. There must be because rich or poor backgrounds, the gap remains the same.

And it's a really interesting question. Put another way, percentage of school leavers with at least an NCEA Level two qualification, this is just standing back. What's really interesting, I am told by the Ministry of Education that those few schools up to about four or five that are right you know achieve at high levels it seems have one thing in common.

Do you know what it is? Any suggestion? Mixed cohort of students, I'm also told, have a very explicit kaupapa Māori or Māori medium approach with a real effort to show and demonstrate cultural connections. And it's an interesting question as to I'm sure it will be addressed: Is there a challenge for us to teach Māori and Pasifika students differently?

Just a question and a challenge that as Children's Commissioner, I raise, all of us searching for answers. And I read recently because I bumped into Hannah Regan in the front row, row Janice and I in Christchurch, I read a report that I guess forms something they're going to be hearing about today. That report talks about the Cambridge classes and flying personal experience and Rangatahi College in 1975, I was involved in the first ever non-streamed class. I mean it was 45 years ago now and it's somewhat anecdotal, but they'd never been a non-streamed class in Rangatahi College was geography. I still remember it. I met students in the school, Pacifica students who I'd never, ever otherwise rubbed shoulders with, and it was terrific. They helped me.I helped them. We had a really enthusiastic teacher, didn't stop me getting 95% school cert geography because people always say, because people always say "if you do non streaming kids who really want to do well, will be prevented from it."The whole class did well, everyone was lifted, everyone benefited. I still think about it. I still talk about it. I still remember our teacher, Mr. Smart.

So I'm excited by today. I'm excited by the opportunities. Yes, of course. We can't shrink from the challenge and the reality of an equity. But if anybody can turn the key and the STEM subjects, it's you. And what a terrific starting point it is. So will that by way of introduction I can I hand over to my co commissioner?

We're trying to act as co commissioners and I think we've got about 15 or 20 minutes each. So Glenis.

[A Māori woman with long hair and a moko enters the stage and stands behind the podium. She is Glenis. Glenis sings a waiata in te Reo Māori]

[Waiata in te reo Māori]

For those of you without any knowledge of all, of te reō Māori, what do you think that song is about? 
What do you think is the message he was trying to convey? I'll give you a hint that wai was composed in wartime. She was sending her out aroha across the waters to her loved one far, far away. And in so doing she captured a moment in time and recorded it for her iwi. And it is a waiata that is sung widely and the place that I call home today.

And because of that waiata, we have never forgotten those tipuna who lost their lives in the war and were laid to rest in foreign lands. An example of mātauranga Māori in action curated, conveyed and living among us. Now for a person without cultural insight, that might just be a song, but with knowledge of te reō, and with the practice of singing and sharing waiata and Hui. As children, we learned the stories of our ancestors and what a blessed existence we lived.

STEM is so much more than what we think it is. And I put to you that every culture will bring its own unique insight into Science, Technology, Mathematics. And this is the opportunity that we have in Aotearoa when we come together to think about the future we want to build for our children.

So in our office, we spend a lot of time listening to young people telling us about their experience of life at school, telling us about their experience of life generally. And for so many, racism has been their experience. Their entire educational experience. Now, when I was a young girl and I have my streaming stories, my end streaming stories, so I'm going to share it now.

When I was a young girl, I went through life under the moniker Glenis Phillip. Now you remember then there was no interweb. You never got to see the photograph of a student before they arrived at your school. And I as the son, as the daughter of a soldier, we got to move around quite a lot.

In fact, we moved every two years or so. So I had the gleeful experience of starting a new school about every two or three years. Now, flying under the name Glenis Philip created an expectation in the minds of my teachers about what I might look like. They certainly didn't expect to greet a little brown girl with long plaits.

I did quite well at school and I was often streamed into the top class, but without exception, every time I started a new school and was streamed into the top class on my very first day, there was a problem. I was a invariably booted down to the cabbage class. Now my father, a very stroppy Pākeha man and an officer in the New Zealand Army, the very next day would stomp into the principal's office and insist that I be returned to the top class where I'd been streamed and would refuse to leave until the matter was rectified.

Now you imagine as a young person, if that's your experience, every time you start a new school and no, it wasn't eight years ago, but the last time it happened to me was in 1981. This is the impact of racism in our country. We deny people a rightful opportunity. We deny people the opportunity to actually see where their intelligence and where their capability might take them based on an assumption about who belongs and who doesn't.

And over time, young people have told us things like this "I'm a library, quiet, filled with knowledge. It's dumb that I'm not asked." The assumption we make about young people and the contribution they might have, sits like this: Heavy on the shoulders of someone who finds themselves in alternative education. Now, while I know the education system and actually the structure and design of it is not within our hands to change what is within our hands to change the assumptions we make when we come face to face with a young person in our orbit.

And I'd wager that "naughty" young person is probably your best hope in STEM, yes?  Unafraid to take risks, insanely curious, is going to push the wire, is actually going to drive you mad with all their questions. Are they not the attributes of a fine scientist? Are they not the attributes of someone unafraid to discover new things?

So my ask of you today, is to mind your assumptions, and to adopt a curious approach to the tamariki and rangatahi in your school who you may not understand. Believe you me, they are libraries filled with knowledge. The fact that we might not understand that knowledge or we might not understand how to access it, is surely not their challenge.

As most of you know, I'm a Gizzy girl through and through, and am absolutely blessed to be a board member on a local STEM champion organization. Tōnui Collab grew out of the opportunity offered to our community by the Mind Lab, and it was picked up by a Ngāti Porou woman and turned into Tōnui. We are a charitable organization.

We operate in our community. Every year, Tōnui Collab creates access for 10,000 or more young people in the Tairāwhiti region to STEM. They come into our little whare and they get to build robots. They get to use augmented reality to tell the stories of Māia Poroaki and Ruapuni. They get to play, they get to learn. They become exposed to a different kind of opportunity, and they love it.

And our little trust provides that opportunity for 10,000 children at the cost of a dollar per child per session. How do we do that? We write funding applications. We fundraise. Because in the place that I call home, the low wage economy has meant that too many of our people are trapped in poverty. So if we're going to lift Tairāwhaiti out of a low wage economy, we need our kids having access to STEM.

Shannon O'Connor is our chief executive and she drives a pretty hardy little ship. Just this year the team have gone mobile and they've moved up the coast to build little STEM hubs all the way up to Wharekahika, which is a three hour drive from Gisborne. Why? Because the kids up there want an opportunity. And you know what the best thing is is during the school holidays, nannies and papas and aunties and uncles and mums and dads, they come down and they have a play to. And so in doing this work and the community, all of a sudden the world of STEM opens up in a way that it hasn't before. The team at Tōnui train teachers. They support teachers in our local community, because when we went out and surveyed the teachers in the schools of Tairāwhiiti, we only found 6% of them were confident to teach STEM subjects.

So where are you when you're a little community organization? You get on with doing something about that. Opening up the world of STEM to our children as a way of adjusting that low wage economy for the future. And already the kids coming through Tōuni, are making digital resources. They are mucking around with the 3D computer, making things that I don't even understand.
They are, being in the best sense of the word, the best tutus they can be, and they know that they descend from the biggest tutu of them all: Māui Tikitiki O Tāranga, Te Haututuoranga Haututu, and our ancestor. So in the spirit of Māui, they get in and they get involved.

Now, I don't need to talk to you all about the digital divide, but it is an issue that requires our urgent attention and action. And the most simple thing that we can do is just stop assuming.  Stop assuming that every child has equal access to an iPad. Stop assuming that the Wi-Fi at a child's home is actually reliable.

Start thinking about the actual hours of access to any facilities that we might have. What those hours might be. What might be required.
COVID exposed this massive iniquity. And the young people I was talking to up in Auckland last week told me that it continues that the expectation that they can reliably continue to study at home, is a false one. And this is in South Auckland. As educators, as educational leaders, we have to be much more curious about the context that our tamariki and ragatahi are learning and we need to stop assuming that they have what we have, because we know; the data tells us, they absolutely don't.

Now, last week I was at Polyfest. Wow. First time ever attending Polyfest. And I tell you what? The young people I met up there and the amazing things they are doing just blew me away. This group, Bubblegum - That's the tagline. "Let's stick together". Cool, eh? This group of young people formed Bubblegum out of a need that they identified during lockdown level four last year when they got safely to lockdown level three. 
They came together to Hui and what they decided needed to be done was that young people needed someone to contact them. So they they were all 12 of them. They used their cell phones to start a call center. They had a list of young people to contact, and they just got on and they rung them up, asked them how they were going.

And through a relationship that they formed with South Seas Health, they found themselves in a position where they could offer practical support, you know; tokens for the laundromat, food vouchers, other things, phone cards, data. The great majority of them wanted data because what the impact of lockdown Level Four was on them was they were they were isolated. Isolation was the big enemy.

What's the opposite of isolation? Connection. So this group of young people, led by a 19-year-old, pulled themselves together, built the call center, and then went on to create opportunities for talanoa. Right around the community. And they continue this day to drive their kaupapa out What's the learning out of that example? For me? Most times us older people should actually just get out of the way.

When we empower young people to lead, we make a huge, huge difference in their lives when we trust them to try something, when we invest in them: Time, resources, faith. From what I've seen in this job so far and yes, only been six months, but from what I've seen so far, they never, ever let us down. The same applies with the equity issue.

What Andrew and I are learning about in this shared role. We're learning about power sharing. We understand that if we are going to make a demonstrable difference for Māori and for Pacific people, Māori and Pacific people need to lead. So on that note, I can see the T-shirt man moving behind me. Have you got your T-shirt?

[Judge Becroft speaks]
So that's us. You've sort of heard from the long and short of it from different perspectives and bringing it together. We've tried to set the scene for what you are doing. I wanted to leave you with a t shirt and leave you with a quote. I'll just put the t shirt on. And then Glenis, she might be able to flip the slide because there's a there's a greater challenge for you. Here's the t shirt. I mean, you are at the forefront of an area where there is injustice, where there is an equity, and what a powerful lobby you are.

I mean, Andrew Little said yesterday at the launch of the new health system, if we think we are an egalitarian, equal society, look again at the stats. We see that as Judges. It's a challenge for Oranga Tamariki. Only you know the challenge it is also for education and you have a wonderful opportunity as a group and collectively, not to stay silent,
Not to be neutral, but to be agents of change for our tamariki and rangatahi. And then that challenge. We wish you collectively the absolute best. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. 

[Audience applause]

[Host] We do have an opportunity to ask questions.

I think I'm told there's an opportunity for one question, so hopefully it's a good one. No pressure after all that. Any questions? Except that you have something.

[Host]
How are we doing? Here's is the question here: How do we empower our children, in particular Māori and Pacific, to speak up about racism? For some it's normalized with the environments instituitonally embedded.

[Glenis speaks]
I think it's a really good idea to ask them. To present the problem and then ask them to design the solution. I think these are issues that can be designed for, but understand that in any design looking to combat racism, they need your support. They need you to believe in the inherent humanity, and they will need you to stand up for them.

Judge?

[Judge Beecroft speaks] And I have been in this role, terrifically surprised and really encouraged and I guess chastened to realize when asked, well and appropriately, children and young people have fantastic answers and fantastic contributions that really do change the way we operate and change our policy. I mean, it was Minister Tolley who said to a group of care-experienced children she put together, "What's your number one concern?"

And they said, "If we have to be removed why are we split up from my brothers and sisters?" and, you know, no adult policy maker ever had that in the books. It wasn't in the law. No one thought of it. But it took children, young people, to elevated to it the number one issue. So in my experience, when asked when given the safe opportunities to do so, they will speak up.
They have the answers. Our job is to unlock that door and enable them to do it and to think hard about what conscious and unconscious racism looks like for us personally.

[Screen shows a powerpoint slide of the names of 6 speakers on the left: Georgia Whitta, Arihia Stirling, Dr Te Taka Keegan, Misa Tovia Va’aelua, Dr Hana O’Regan. Right side of screen shows a stage with the 5 speakers seated, and the host speaking into the podium microphone]

[Slide shows NZQA logo: Qualify for the future world, Kia noho takatū ki tō āmua aoi]

[Voice of male host]

Of Cook Island Māori descent, raised in Palmerston North, Georgia is a proud Amanaki STEM Academy alumni. Georgia is a keen advocate for Māori and Pasifika students and is a staff ambassador for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

Georgia is in her fourth year of medical school and is currently on placement with Middlemore Hospital.

Georgia: From a student's perspective, what have been the main challenges of your journey and what would your key advice be for schools, education providers to assist with those challenges?

[Georgia stands up and addresses the audience]

Kia or ngā koutou katoatoa. Ko Georgia Whitta toku ingoa. Ko Arorangi ki te ori. Ko Rarotonga ahau.  Ko Robert Kai Stephens  toku papa, ko Charlotte Susan me te toku mama. Hello, everyone. My name is Georgia and here today I am talking to you about what we can do better for our Māori and Pasifika students.

I was raised in Palmerston North and attended Palmerston Girls’ High School and now I have moved on into working with NZQA, the USER program and with MAPAS program to provide equity for our students.

My overarching concept that I'm going to be talking to you guys about today is that we cannot expect mass Māori and Pasifika STEM success if we keep our students in an environment that has always them.

The oppressive environments being not micro-aggressions but macro aggressions, racism and the Westernized schooling system. I'm going to break down this idea into three areas individual, schooling and systemic change that we can do at the level of the individual.

I had a very interesting experience at my high school. I was told that it was unlikely that I was going to be a doctor. At my Pacifica graduation, my deans decided to bring up my detentions before they brought up my successes.

I always received surprise from teachers when I achieved a high grade in STEM subjects. I was told I couldn't take Māori over English at level three.

 I wasn't allowed to speak te reō Māori in class and, I was told by a peer of mine, a friend, that it was “really great to see some colour up on stage for once” at my prize giving.

What I want to say is an individual teachers and tertiary providers is that you should never, ever have low expectations of us as Māori and Pasifika students.

We built waka, we navigated seas, we created traditional medicine, and we were climate action warriors before Greta Thunberg. Don't assume that all Māori and P.I. students are the same and, just on basic levels, don't be racist.

Sounds pretty simple, but it comes across every day in classrooms. At the school level, my school operated as just as many schools in New Zealand do.

You have a teacher standing at the front talking to students and students are expected to take that on and work in silence. But of course, my friends and I, the brown students at the back who are talking, discussing and helping each other, of course we weren't on task.

Of course we weren't talking about covalent bonds and hydrogen atoms.

And so we always got checked up on by our teachers, always coming over to make sure we were on task.

We need to move into an environment where Māori Pasifika students are learning an environment that is good for them, which is facilitating talanoa, allowing us to work in groups and recognizing that sometimes we know how to explain it to others better than the teacher explains it to us.

 And also we've been discussing streaming, and I hate streaming, too. My very, very first  [Papaaw] mother had to force and beg the school to put me into a streamed class at year ten because I wasn't streamed in year nine.

And then also, if the system fails you at year ten in Science, you will put into foundation Science programs which don't let you excel into our advanced Biology, Chemistry and Physics programs.

So if the system fails you in year ten it stunts your growth for years to come. And as we've discussed, it's got vast mental effects on our students at the level of the government.

I can say that my best ever Pacific STEM program at high school was the Amanaki STEM Academy.

The Amanaki STEM Academy was started by myself and some friends who decided on Friday, Saturday nights we would study science at my friend's house and we studied with Milo and breakfast crackers under some very firm guidance from my friend's parents, and that was the best program we ever had because we were allowed to talk freely, mostly freely.

We were allowed to eat food, were allowed to joke, and we were allowed to teach each other. But the responsibility to ensure STEM equity should never be on the shoulders of our brown people.

It shouldn't be on the shoulders of our brown students who are forced to start making these equity changing programs in high school. It should not be on the responsibility of our brown communities.

The government and tertiary providers have far more manpower, resources and money to do this. Schools, I believe, should have compulsory equity achievement programs, programs such as the USER program, which is brown-led brown tutoring.

We would be paying students or community members to come in and tutor our brown students, where we have separated spaces allowing for Māori and Pasifika students to study in an environment that's comfortable for them because the Western schooling environment is not comfortable for us.

The concept of equity can be quite difficult for people to get their head around because it sounds like you're giving more to another group. In medicine if you have someone coming in and a sucker state, you treat the sickest persons first.

That doesn't mean you're going to neglect all your other patients that came in with runny noses and sore feet.It just means that you're not going to give them as much treatment as you have to give the other person.

So equity is often thought of this grand philosophical idea implemented at policies and legislations. But actually equity happens every day with every interaction you have with your students, your offices and your workplaces.

Recognizing that each day you can make a commitment to equity is the biggest thing that we can do to change as individuals.

And as stated before, if you're not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. Let's talk about after.

Meitaki Maata.

[Female Host] Kia ora.

[Audience applause]

[Georgia takes her seat and the male host returns to the podium]

[Male host]

Dr. Te Taka Keegan is an associate professor in computing and Associate Dean Māori for the Division of Health, Engineering, Computing and Science at the University of Waikato. Te Taka has worked on a number of projects involving the Māori language and technology.

These include Māori Niupepa collection, Māori Te Kete Ipurangi, the Microsoft keyboard, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office in Māori, Moodle in Māori, Google web search in Māori and the Māori macroniser.

In 2013 Te Taka was awarded the University of Waikato’s Māori Indigenous Excellence Award for Research in 2017, he was awarded the Prime Minister's Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence.

Welcome Te Taka. With your experience and tertiary education, what are the main trends you've seen for acting on Māori and Pasifika and STEM? What practices do you consider foster engagement for Māori and Pacific ākonga in STEM?

[Dr Te Taka stands to talk]

Kia ora tātou, tuatahi, kei te mihi, me kī ki te mana whenua, NZQA, nā koutou i huihui mai tātou i konei mō tēnei kaupapa, otirā ngā kaikōrero, ki mua ki muri, ki muri ki mua. Ngā mana, ngā tapu, tēnā tātou katoa. We're only given 5 minutes to talk so I'm only going to talk for 5 minutes because I like to do what I'm told most of the time.

So I'm going to look at things from a tertiary perspective, from a university perspective. And really I can only speak from the university that I've been at for the last couple of years, and that's Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato.

But the first thing I want to say is, getting our students to university shouldn't really be the goal, for us at the universities.

That's just the beginning. Once we have them at universities and I'm sure as Georgia will know we've got a lot of work to do because there's so many, so much development, so many areas we can take them through.

So yeah, please keep in mind, getting our students to university isn't the goal. It's getting them there and having them prepared to be able to develop and flourish for all the different opportunities and sciences and learnings that they can have there.

So I was asked to talk about two things: what are the trends we have seen and what are some of the practices.

Now there's lots of things I could say, but I thought I'd just mention three things in terms of trends we’ve seen at university, in terms of Māori students, in terms of Pasifika, the numbers are increasing but they're only increasing by a little bit.

We think they need to be increasing by a lot more. We have issues where we don't have enough Māori and Pasifika staff to be able to guide them through and to be able to bring a type of thinking that our students are needing. [Te Taka pauses.]

Okay, so numbers: numbers are increasing, but it’s too slow, we've got an issue with staff.

I actually think traditionally universities are like a bastion of colonialization, of racism. I actually think that's changing quite a lot.

I think the thinking is starting to change. So we need to ensure that those changes actually come into place. Don't just think about it, let's start doing that.

And we look forward to challenges from students, from staff, from Māori internal, external, at universities, to make those challenges real.

One of the trends that we're noticing is these actually like two types of Māori student or two types of Pasifika student.

So there’s those students that come with a deep and rich understanding of, of their background, of their tikanga, of reō, mātauranga, and then we have those students that come who are still Māori and Pasifika but absolutely no understanding.

And it's kind of like it's not like there's one group or the other, it's like a continuum and all of the students are somewhere along the path. So some of the avenues and some of the approaches we have for students down this end [gestures]  don't work for students down this end [gestures to other side].

And I think if we're true to see the seen Māori and Pacific Islanders Island students, what we have to do is encourage that movement along the continuum.

I think if they leave our care at a university and they haven't moved along that continuum, then I think we're kind of failing a little bit on what we should be doing. The other thing I'd like to note and some of the trends is that it's not a level playing field, though the Māori and Pasifika students have more barriers than non-Māori non-Pasifika students.

One of the key ones is the environments. The environment they are coming to at a tertiary institute is a lot more foreign. It's a foreign environment.

There’s a barrier from secondary to tertiary that the students need to overcome. Students quite often, Māori students, Pasifika students of our students have cultural, they have cultural responsibilities.

And the classic example this morning, Hine Pounamu wasn't here because of cultural responsibilities.

We have a lot of students at university that have the same cultural responsibilities and we need to ensure that, our institutes are aware of those, they allow for them, they cater for them, and they don't negatively affect our students.

And then we have this thing called whakamā and whakamā is our issue for a lot of our students at tertiary institutes.

So those are some of the trends we've seen. I have a lot of hope that at tertiary institutes we can address and work towards some of those strengths and some of the practices that I think we should be doing.

So I'm going to there's lots of practices that I think we should be doing, but I'm going to list three.

So the first practice for me is: whakawhanaungatanga.. If we can create opportunities of whakawhanaungatanga. with our students in our tertiary institutes and increases their opportunities to succeed.

And for me, when I see the picture of the flower and the flowers wilting and we've got to look at the, the ground that its growing in, for me that's whanaungatanga.

Whakawhanaungatanga. is that that makes a flower to grow. We are, at Waikato university, we're going to start instigating a program called the Pūhoro STEM program and for me, I see that's the key of the Pūhoro STEM program is the ability to leverage off whakawhanaungatanga. Matehaere ngā tahi ko te atu mahi.

And so that's the first thing. The second thing I think is an important practice is having a good teacher, good teachers are really important.

Everybody who's been through school can remember their best teacher and they really like that subject. And it could be like for me, the suckiest subject of all, but I've got a really good teacher then that makes a huge difference.

So good luck, Arihia, with finding your teacher. Get some good teachers and we'll get good students for me.

For me, I hope you get a good teacher and like computer science because then I’m going to get good computer science students. And I have a little bit of an issue with the STEM name because for me, so Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, for me, the technology doesn't really cut out for my particular field.

So my particular field is Computer Science. And Computer Science is a lot more than just Technology.

And we have the famous Computer Science saying that says “Computer Science is as much about computers as Astronomy is about telescopes.”

So it's when we study computer science, we're not really studying the technology we're studying all the opportunities and benefits that we can get from the technology and, when we look at the students asking what they're going to be, it's very rare for for them to think of computer science and the different levels of opportunities in computer science as a career for them in the future.

And that kind of brings me onto my third point in practices.  So: whanaungatanga, having a really good teacher, and then the third thing I think is really important is being able to spark the passion within the students, because if we can spark that passion, then we can drive them a lot and so some of the things that we look at in particular is “how do we spark a computer science passion?” or

“How do we spark the mathematics passion?” And I think there's a couple of things. There's a whole list of things we can do to spark that.

But like Arihia just mentioned: Making our students realize that we have aspects of computer science in the practices, in the tikanga and now to I think for me personally, I think the way that Maui achieved all his feats wasn't so much as his ability to enhance technology, but his ability to use concepts that are grounded in computer science.

So how can we show our children? How can we show our rangatahi Māori, rangatahi Pacifica that their knowledge base comes from a computer science knowledge base?

That's what I'm going to say anyway, because that's my department. [Audience laughter] So how can we spark the passion?

If we can spark the passion, then those students will be able to overcome the obstacles, and they will get lots of obstacles when they come to university.

And so, so finally, just as leading off, I think as teachers, as teachers at university, as lecturers, as associate professors, at whatever we are, as teachers at universities.

You know, there's a couple of key things we should be able to do, and one of them is to unshackle our students. The second thing is to empower them to go all of the places they want to go, instil tikanga, reō, mātauranga in all of those different areas.

And just get out of the way, get out of the way and let them do it. Maybe watch from the sideline and guide them a little bit.

And then from a university perspective, write your name beside some of the great things that they create so it makes the university look good. So: unshackle our students empower our students and get out of the way.

Kia ora tatou.

[Audience applause]­­

[Host returns to the podium] Tena koe Te Taka. Misa Tovia Va’aelua. As a cultural builder, Pacifica advocate and tech founder.

He's the general manager of Rhipe Australasia and the chairman of Pacifica in I.T. who are a collective of experienced and knowledgeable industry professionals with a passion for I.T. and a heart for Pacific Island community.

He is a proud son of Samoa and Aotearoa and is committed to seeing Pacific communities educated, equipped and employed across all areas of the information technology industry.

Misa Tovia, from your industry experience, what X-factor do you believe Māori and Pacific students bring to STEM industries, and why is this important for Aotearoa?

[Misa stands to address the audience]

All right, all right. Do you know how hard it is for people like me to sit still? Um, okay. So, uh, I think I just want to get something out first.

It was very difficult for me to come up here because, you know, when [Autu Faeselli] showed me the list of the other panelists and it was doctors, an overachiever like Georgia, you know, and then you find yourself sort of sitting there going, there's got to be a way in which I can get out of here.

I couldn't find it. But let me start first by saying I, I, [to self] Uh, how do this? Let's go. [Speaks to audience in Samoan] Man, my Dad would destroy me if he was here. [Continues in Samoan]

Before I answer the question on the X factor for Pacific and Māori, I wanted to you know, it's quite interesting. I thought everyone else going to prepare slides and obviously they didn't.

So forgive me. Yeah, I just want to take a step back and talk about the landscape first, the digital skills report that came out the beginning of this year.

[Slide is titled The technology pipeline and landscape. On the slides are charts that show Māori and Pasifika participation in NCEA Digital Technologies standards are declining. The chart also shows a low rate of Māori and Pasifika in the technology industry.]

We will be doing cutaway reports working with our brother Graeme Muller out of NZ Tech to figure this out. Before I start getting into everything else, I just wanted to raise this so that everyone else can see what the landscape looks like today.

The landscape for the current population today and in the I.T. industry that I'm a part of and have been a part of for the last 22 years, Pacifica is 2.8% and Māori aren’t doing,

In fact, Māori, given that they're tangata whenua are probably doing worse in terms of the representation inside that industry.

If you go back and look at the three years of the next cohort or the next talent that's coming through, you can already start to see here that, yes Māori is 10.5, Pacific is 5.5 and that's an average across both NCEA, the graduate programs and also the degree programs.

It's not looking good in the next three years. And then if you go back further to secondary school, you can see there that we're at 23% in Māori, 9% in Pasifika and it's still it looks like it's improving, but it's not because if you look at the declining participation in see a digital technology standards, you can see that Māori and Pacific participation is declining as well.

 So, the reason why I want to see that landscape or set the scene is so that you understand for people like me who are in the industry and have been industry for two decades, it's tough because there's not that many people like me.

Well, if I think if I think about my background. So I was meant to be a teacher, but then realized that you have to actually be passionate about children.

So I decided not to do that. And you'll, you'll probably thank me for it. And then I got into technology. I started off for telecom, moved to Datacom. I, I worked for Microsoft, the average tenure in Microsoft 3.4 years. I did 15.

So, you know, that whole it was like Survivor, you know, outwit, outplay but for me it was outrun because of my dad, you know. But everything that I've ever gotten involved in around technology has always been about community.

[Slide shows Ideation, Innovation, Necessity. Ideation is new products and markets. Necessity is better quality of life]

So you ask the question, what is the X Factor? And the X Factor is really simple. You look at innovation. There are two types of innovation that exist. There is innovation by ideation and innovation by necessity.

The innovation that you do when you have a great idea is amazing because you get to come up with new stuff and you get to come up with stuff where you create new products and new markets.

But the innovation that you come up with, when you have, I wouldn't say nothing, when you have very little, is amazing, even more amazing. But the outcome of that innovation by necessity is just a better quality of life.

[Slide is titled Skills half life. There are examples of driving skills half life. There is an image of a horse and cart with the caption, 1800s, 3,800 years. There is a taxi cab with the caption, 1900s, 100 years, there is a man driving a car holding a cellphone with the caption, 2000s, 5 years]

And so I look back on my own, my career and whilst I don't attest to be anything near what my fellow panelists have, I've been privileged to be to have led the team that deployed the first I.C.O. or Initial Coin Offering around cryptocurrency to a Southeast Asian community which was to help them to actually because they couldn't bank because they didn't have a fixed address that was recognized by the bank.

And this is 2.5 million people, quite a small community in Southeast Asia, but we helped them to actually be able to trade with each other using cryptocurrency for the first time.

That was surrounded by community, then I was part of the team that deployed TV white spaces, which takes TV channel bandwidth and converts it to 8 meg broadband because we knew that where wi-fi and cable didn't reach we knew that TV signal could.

And so we did that because again, we were looking at community.

And you know, when you're growing up in the Samoan family and your dad's chasing you around the neighbourhood and you're dodging cars and all sorts of things, the one thing you learn is that you need community people that will help you and hide you.

And, and so that that was built into me. And so every project that I've ever done, all the startups that I have on the go today are all, they are all around community to try and create a better quality of life for people.

But the urgency around getting our people, our students are our Māori and Pacific people into children, our rangatahi  going into, into tech is, is, is more urgent than you think.

Some of you may already be familiar with the skills half-life, I’ve used the example here you can see it in the learning in the digital age from Deloitte, and it talks about if you were a horse and cart horse and carriage driver your family, you would have come from a family of horse and carriage drivers.

That would have been your, you know, your mainstay for decades, even, you know, potentially millennia.

And then you come to a taxi driving and that will probably last you maybe a century at best. If you're an Uber driver, you have the better part of five years left. The skills that you're acquiring today, the half-life of those in which half of it will become irrelevant, is getting smaller and smaller. It's gone down to five years.  

Why? Because automated self-driving vehicles will put all these drivers out of business.

And this is why the urgency around getting our kids into the tech industry is important and it's important also because they are in our backyard and they understand necessity. They understand what it means when we understand what it means when we don't have, you know, enough. And we're only just trying to make ends meet and we're looking for a better quality of life.

And so the urgency is important for us to encourage our kids, because I'm still sitting there, in that and that industry looking out for them, waiting for them to arrive.

If you look at professional service skills half lives, this becomes a more interesting aspect because then you can see right from if you're in the 1960s, whatever skill you acquired, you know, you had that that was good for 30 years and 30 years time, your skills would be half as useful.

[Slide is titled Industrial Revolution (IR) Skills Half-Life. A chart shows a fast decline for professional service skills half-life.  It starts from the 1960s with a half-life of 30 years, then down to 1980s with 20 years, then to 2000s with 7 years and finally at 2020 with 4 years]

We're now sitting it, you know, around five years and it's dropping. There are even some research or reports that are saying that the half skill half life of a skill is now down to three years.

The urgency of being able to get people in because of the digital age and actually helping to automate a lot of these things.

And it's not automation that's destroying or removing the jobs. Automation, creating clarity so that our people aren't doing the tedious jobs that they're doing today, and we can upskill them and reskill them.

This is not an indictment on education, not an indictment on anyone, because if there is ever a guilty party around education and lifelong education, it's us in the industry.

We have an expectation that NZQA and all of the schools will do the education. When you get to the work and get into the industry, you don't need to learn anymore. when in actual fact lifelong learning is a necessity now.

Learning and development is critical through the digital tools that are available. This is critical for all of our learners who come and whether they Pasifika, Māori or otherwise.

And so it's important for us to understand the urgency has become more and more apparent. And a lot of people have been talking about in the Industrial Revolution three, the introduction of the of the logical processor, of the PC and Industrial Revolution four, which was the introduction of digital, the key change point in Industrial Revolution four was the Internet.

No one's talking about Industrial Revolution five, but you need to understand why Industrial Revolution five is important, because Industrial Revolution five is the humanization of the computer.

And so if you look at what Māori and Pacifica bring, we bring humanity. You know, we have community. We understand community because this is what this is built into us.

[Slide shows robot hand pointing at the audience with the words industrial revolution 5.0]

And so as we move into this new industrial revolution, we're looking for those kids to come to help us to put that humanity back into the automation of robotics.

And we're still waiting. So if you're asking if the question is and the question is, what is the X factor? The X factor is I think my sister said it before, we were doing these things long before Greta came along.

We're doing these things long before people started calling it the fancy names that they are. We just do community.

And so if there's anything that I can do to help you or if anyone wants to buy me a coffee after, then you're more than welcome to sort of just come and tap me in and drag me out. Malo le soifua.

[Audience applause and Misa resumes his seat on the stage]

31:48

[Male host returns to the podium and speaks]

Dr. Hana O’Regan is the chief executive CORE Education and has worked in the areas of language, revitalization, identity and cultural development te reō Māori in education for over 25 years. Hana is a published author and composer and is recognized internationally for work in indigenous language acquisition and revitalization. A graduate of Te Panekiretanga Institute of Excellence in te reō Māori Hana is widely respected for Māori language contributions skills and advocacy.

Hana's passion for education and community history and equity has resulted in a career committed to working with organizations, businesses and individuals to support and enhance positive outcomes for learners and whānau. From your vast experience, Hana, what role would iwi communities or what role could iwi communities play in raising achievement STEM?

32:59

Kia ora. Ko taku tuatahi tāku ki a koe e te kaiwhakarite, e te tukāne Lee, nāu i para te huarahi ki te wāhi karo i te ata nei, nā reira, e toro atu ana kā mihi ki a koe, heoi anō, ki kā takata whenua o te rohe nei, Te Ātiawa me ō hoa iwi e noho ana ki tō koutou taha arā, Ngāti Raukawa tērā, ko Kāti Toa tērā, nei rā te mihi atu o Aoraki mauka  ki kā mauka whakahī, tae atu ki kā mauka katoa, e whakakanohi nei i tēnei rūma, tēnā tātou.

Kia ora everybody. And I said Hi to your mountains too. No matter where they are from, ko ka whanau ka o te maunga nui a kiwa. To my Pacific whanau ka relations, tenei koutou me koutou te huka Kaiako ko whakaraka tera nei,  i te kaupapa i tenei ra, tenei tatou, so to our Pacific relations  but also to the many teachers, no matter where you come from in this land, our mountains greet each other on this Kaupapa and has been mentioned, during the school holidays. So nei ra te mihi tenei koutou.

Ok Lhi, my 5 minutes starts now! So I've been asked around the perspectives of iwi and what role iwi and communities have to address this challenge that we have in front of us.

And I guess the first thing, it's really hard when you've been standing up and you've had Andrew Beecroft, and you've had Glennis and you've had Arihia, and you've had this panel of amazing speakers here to then be given 5 minutes to speak from an iwi perspective. But what I will say is that perhaps, perhaps the key word would be kia manawa titi tatou, kia manawanui tātou” we that we have to have the perseverance of the titi, the mutton bird titi, actually half of my rellies down south.

are out on the Mutton Bird islands now, collecting the titi. In a sustainable practice, by the way, the reason we use this term; Te Manu Tītī, is because a tītī will fight to the end of the earth to do what it needs to do and come back and look after its young we might eat the young at that point, but this behind there's not this kaupapa today, and we need to have this kind of perseverance.

We need to have this kind of strength to deal with the challenges that are in front of us. We need to do it as iwi, but we also need to do it within whānau because whilst I've heard things today and, all positive intent as well, things like “We need to encourage our children to see the benefit of STEM within Māori and Pasifika.”

“We need to ignite that passion.” I absolutely agree with that. But there's a bigger challenge and that challenges is that the system that we work within does inevitably, and has done now for generations, create barriers to that success. It's not that our children don't see the success, the benefits of STEM. Of course they see it. They're not dumb. And for us to think for a moment that they don't see that the ones who actually succeed within those qualifications and go on in terms of in terms of those roles and those professions, they are the ones who can provide sustainable environments for their whanau, who can feed their whānau, who can look after their whānau. They see that. It's not that they don't see the value in it. It's that we're not doing enough to create the opportunities that enable their success within it. It's not the fault of our children, and it's also not just the fault of one part in the community.

It's not just the fault of the teachers. It's not just the fault of the education system, of the ministries that set the policies. It's not just the fault of the iwi. We are all actually a product of the system and we need to dig deep and be brave enough to realize that we have now had generations who have been subjected to a way of thinking about learners and about certain people within our community that perpetuates the negative statistics that you've seen today.

It perpetuates those inequities. It was designed to create the inequities. Streaming, as my brother Eruera, has said, was designed to create a class system. We need to be brave enough to step back and say, “Actually, what are the other areas? What are the other rules, the other practices, the other policies that we have that we experience every day that also perpetuate those same inequities?”

And we have to be brave because it's so big. It's everywhere. And if you're not one of the people in our community; that 10% or that 30% that Judge Beecroft referred to that sees these inequities on a daily basis, you can almost be forgiven for not realizing that they are there and not seeing our role in perpetuating them. So I have to say to my iwi, our iwi, I have to say to my whānau: We also need to do something around changing the expectations that we have also started to take on, because we've also been a product of an inter-generational system.

We have to have a kind of resilience which is almost terrifying because of how big it is. My brother Eruera showed a picture of Matiaha Tiramōrehuan image of him 1848. He comes from my marae. At Moeraki we teach our children about that man who was a scientist, who was an incredible author, a writer, an educator, seven generations.

It had took from the time that he protested around the inequities and challenged people for the brown skin be made just equal with the white skin before we achieved settlement. That takes a lot of perseverance to think not only for the generation now, but actually for the generations in the future. That's why I say for the role of our iwi is to not give up.

We're at a point now that we have an ability to change a system and change our practices, address racism in a way that we haven't yet in our country. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge that that knowledge, not just around numbers and figures, but acknowledge that that impacts the lives and the dispositions of the learners that we have in front of us.

It's really easy to disassociate ourselves from the personal impact on an individual when we look at figures. Iwi need to dig deep and also find the strength within them to engage with some of the same schools in the same communities that have created those inequities and being the been the cause of them in the past. And we need to do it because not one group of us will be able to do it alone.

If we do not work with educators to support the change in the mindset that builds up the positive expectation of the Māori and the Pacific learner. It won't work. If we're battling on the door and trying to knock down the door of the NZQA or the Ministry of Education and we're not changing some of the same messages in the home around our expectations of our children, our babies, our mokopuna.

It won't work. But working together, the call to action that Eru laid down before us, working together with the coalition of the willing, understanding that teachers aren't inherently bad, understanding that teachers love children [audience laughter] and have chosen a career that invests in the future of those children, and of those communities, because they don't do it for the money. Unlike some professions [audience laughter] understanding that actually some of the messages in the systems that they are working with then they are doing so because that also a product of that system.

So we need to be brave enough to challenge, to look with an equity lens at what we're doing and join together with the coalition of the willing. You want to be on this wākā, but we've got to make sure as iwi as whanau, as communities that we're working with, all of those who are who are likewise like minded, committed to this kaupapa.

And when we're brave enough to see that inequity lies in front of us, we'll put our hand up and we'll say me mutu e konei. It stops here. And if you're on that waka, we will work with you. If you're not, you don't want to be another wākā. So dig deep, dig deep. And when I think about the challenge that was laid by Judge Beecroft, about vision I was attracted to work in the organization that I'm now working in because of the vision: Equity and learning for all New Zealanders for a thriving Aotearoa.

I wanted to be doing some of the do because I've been teaching and speaking for nearly three generations because I started when I was five, three generations, three decades, I should say. And I wanted to do something about it because I've actually failed my own children. I'm a mother of two children who have been raised with Māori language as their first language when it's been lying dormant in my family for over 120 years and I've failed them and I know before my baby boy went to school I spoke to Ero and I said, please, can you put the W in Ero so it becomes Wero so we can do that.

I'm worried as a five year old Māori boy going to school looking like a Māori boy, I know what it's going to be like for him. Please, can you do something about that? And I failed my five year old boy. I failed him because on the first day of school he got taken into the principal's office for being naughty.

Who does that at age five. First of all, the mother in me went “You little….” , but then my heart broke I saw this boy who was so excited about education, who came from a family of educationalists, literally crumble before my eyes. And at the age of six, he told my mother, My Pākeha mother, “When I grow up, I'm going to jail because that's where the bad Māori boys go and only bad Māori boys go to jail.

But I don't care because in jail they give you mashed potato and I like mashed potato.” Six years old. He's telling me I should leave him in the road to die, to get run over because he's naughty. And I'm thinking, I was my qualifications, with the mouth that I have, I cannot protect my own son. And last year and 2020, when my children asked me to change their names on the on the roll at school 2020, and said, “Mum e hari te me ko koe te rau te muru o tahi a ra"

You're not there having to deal with this every day. Just change my name from Manuhia to Manu. change my name from Tarotawhi to Taro”. So my vision, my vision on a personal level, not the statistics, is it that my mokopuna won't change their name. My mokopuna won't be like my son in year nine and said “I'm not good at maths and I'm in the dumb class the science because I only went to a decile two school.”

What 13 year old knows what a decile two school is? My mokopuna will see that the schools have learned from the models of Māori education, Māori-medium education, the fact that our students in Māori medium education succeed at higher rates across English, Maths, Science than their Māori counterparts in mainstream schools. Why? Because they are being culturally enhanced. They don't have to defend their culture, they don't have to defend their identity, and they succeed across the board.

My children threatened to run away if I sent them to a Māori immersion school.

And they did that because they had been fed the messages that they would be limited if they went there, they wouldn't have the same opportunities if they went somewhere else. So, my mokopuna they're going to say taua, tuku au tenei  kura Māori. They're going to say, “Send me to the schools where I'm culturally supported, where the teachers can say my name, my culture is seen for all that it is” then I won't have failed my grandchildren.

Like I failed my children. That's why I say we have to dig deep. When the teacher at year ten said at my parent teacher interviews, “Your son has the worst attitude of a learner that I've ever come across”. You only get 5 minutes. “Does that surprise you?” And I said, “Can we talk about teacher-student relationship?” She said, “Well, he's not succeeding in any of any of this work.”

I Said, “Yeah, okay, can we come back to that teacher student relationship? My son thinks you hate him. If he thinks you hate him, it's downhill from here. I'm not worried about my son. My son's got a fantastic mind. I'm not worried about his vocab. I'm not worried about his ability to learn. I'm worried about how he feels as a learner in your class.

Can we talk about that?” Last year he walked across the, sorry, This year he walked across the stage  because he got excellence endorsement and in say I live one I felt like doing this to the teacher which is what you do when you've got mittens on and you want to do something else. Why? Because my son has the supports.

He can go home to his grandfather, his uncles, his aunties, people who tell him that the myths that you hear in the community, the myths that you hear about being a Māori learner are actually not true. This is the truth. The truth is our narrative. The truth is, our ability, the truth is our X-Factor. The truth is the potential not having to defend that.

Once upon a time we were skilled navigators that should be known by everyone in the country. We that's not even the starting point. Not having to defend the culture, not having to defend who they are, but celebrating that creativity, celebrating their innovation, celebrating the way they are as Māori, as Pacifica within our kura and within our communities. So I ask Iwi like I did when a news report came out, the call to action to stop streaming.

I took that kaupapa to iwi chairs. 78 iwi. When we said “This is one of the things that stops, stops the potential, literally crushes the potential of so many of our tamariki in our schools.” And I said, “Will you 78 iwi, get behind this?” They endorsed that. They were brave enough to say, “Yep, even though if we looked at everything, it seems like too big a challenge. Let's take it one step at a time and do something about that when we can.”

So we were able to go to the Ministry of Education and say that 78 iwi agree with the kaupapa of Te Toka Ngā Taraki and come behind the call to action to stop streaming. That's what iwi can do, to not give up the fight, but actually cherish the fact that we are in a time now like no other, where we have teachers who come in their school holidays to discuss the reality that so many have denied for so long.

We need to see the hope in the minds and the hearts of our tamariki that it will change, that it can change. And we need to work together with the coalition of the willing to make it happen. No pressure. You can change it. And when my daughter said to me, “Mama, I want to be a teacher” and every other pāka in the room says “Don't do that. Who would want to be a teacher?” I said to her, “It’s all right, because your brother wants to be a financial business analyst so he can earn our money. You go change the world.”

Kia koutou katoa koutou kei te mura o te ahi To those of you who are doing this every day, join with iwi, join with the communities, help our whanau tell a new narrative of success and then we can do it together. Kia ora koutou katoa.

[Two women are sitting down in an office environment. One is Kathryn Jenkin, Co-Head of Department of Science, the other is Whaea Naomi Cusack, Kaiako Māori, Co-Head of House

Kia ora. I'm Naomi Cusack, lifting up an old warrior and also H.O.H.

00:00:10:09 - 00:00:42:09
Speaker 2
Kia ora. Katherine Jean can keep it up in a way. Western Springs College and head of department, co-head of Department Science. We as a Science department said "Our Maori learners are not doing as well as our other students and our department. It seemed natural to speak to the heads of houses of our Waiōrea kura to say how, how can we together?

00:00:42:11 - 00:00:50:02
Speaker 2
Or How can we as a department support these students to achieve what they need to achieve to keep on going in their pathway?

00:00:51:03 - 00:01:20:11
Speaker 1
Expectations are huge for me and, sometimes what I know of our kids, they don't have that self-belief. And sometimes it's actually a matter of of somebody in their life saying, "Well, I actually believe -  I believe that you can do it. So you might need to fall over a few times, and you might not succeed the first time. But if we don't give up in our attitude as well, that's a learning curve or that's a building block or or that's, you know, my first scaffold.

The learning actually happens.

00:01:24:03 - 00:01:43:15
Speaker 2
After a few informal conversations with Whaea Naomi and Whaea Bella as their heads of houses we locked in a regular 30 minute slot. And by regular, I mean weekly, maybe a bit longer than 30 minutes until about in the morning. And actually talk about individual students based on the data, based on what their needs were at the time.

-
And how we could support each other.

00:01:45:17 - 00:01:49:04
Speaker 2
To support them. And so actions would come out of those meetings.

00:01:49:12 - 00:02:32:03
Speaker 1
And I guess the awesome thing about that triangular kind of relationship, that we had with us as classical students and parents became a natural progression from those meeting slots and and really allowed us to get some good learning and buy in from our students. And they started to kind of enjoy the subjects, relationships, data, conversation and bringing that stuff all together to actually create a program that is probably more tailored to not just a group of students, but individual students, because we did do a lot of that as well.

00:02:32:24 - 00:02:45:01
Speaker 1
And having those conversations at an individual level, as well as a collective level in terms of some of our, er, kids in the classes that they took within science.

00:02:45:09 - 00:03:28:04
Speaker 2
Our results last year and for example, Level Two Chemistry and Level Two Biology Standards have increased quite drastically. 10 to 20% increase in achievement for our Māori learners and its Māori learners across both kura.  We try and the whole school. As a government we're trying to model everything we do on TE Treaty or Waitangi. So yeah, our outcomes for Maria, hugely important, but also the status and the positions of our Māori kaiako should be equal to those of our high school Pākeha.

00:03:28:04 - 00:03:56:23
Speaker 2
I suppose what I firstly wanted to explain is that our results, this massive jump in results, particularly in our level two Chemistry, physics, biology, single sciences last year was not my work. It was the result of the gorgeous Whaea Nomi that you just saw there in Whea Bella, our other HRH as well as my mentor Julie De giving me a bit of a challenge.

00:03:57:01 - 00:04:18:13
Speaker 2
What are you what am I going to do? As well as the incredible team that I work with and our science department every day. So the results did increase and that's, I suppose, what NZQA has noticed. The other point I wanted to make, though, was that the measure of success of our beautiful [Tawhaira]  is not NCEA results only.

00:04:19:05 - 00:04:45:12
Speaker 2
We've got other ways that we define success, and we're talking about that quite a bit at the moment. But that's the hard data that we've got. And I do believe. Yes that it  does. Tell us something. Some of the anecdotal stuff that we have noticed, though, as the communication between our akonga and the science, classical has increased massively verbal communication, emailing and yep, body language, everything which has been super, super cool to see.

00:04:46:07 - 00:05:07:11
Speaker 2
The other thing, of course, is the relationships with their whanau that has happened as a result of that to, are also the heads of houses by a Nomi and five Bella and I have noticed the increase in confidence of these  in the Science subjects, but also across other subjects too. And except for us, the other is to give us some more formal data.

00:05:07:11 - 00:05:28:16
Speaker 2
So to get some student voice to do what? Judge injury and I've forgotten her name on the spot. Glennis! So what they have been doing to actually see if is something that the students think to do, not just our idea a little bit of context for our career. We are a I did the outcome of that we were tracking so our message was very similar.

00:05:28:16 - 00:06:09:21
Speaker 2
I've remembered Waireka?. Our message was very similar to what Anna has talked about, where we literally got a spreadsheet and pulled out the names of learners who actually were and in [ Maori}. But our Māori learners essentially looked at them and started every week saying every day critical of those students would be writing down with our at what they are up to if there was missing, if they had questions, if they were interested in something career wise, whatever had come up, if they'd talked to home and then I would meet with Whaea Bella I Nomi weekly I see it half an hour.

00:06:10:08 - 00:06:34:05
Speaker 2
Naomi reckons longer, but we would meet until that kind of every Tuesday morning and we would talk about actual data, like actual things that teachers had written and say from there, what actions have we got and who's going to do it? And in our context, we have we based we've tried to, I suppose, based the whole system on Te Tiriti ō Waitangi.

00:06:34:05 - 00:06:52:24
Speaker 2
We've got a CO governance model we've got and that's obviously not what everyone can go home and do. But we do have two schools that I'm talking about. One is mapping out a while there. One is with some Springs College, we're on the same site. And so I suppose my message though is start small. So I last year didn't try and look at every single Māori learner in the whole school or every Pacific Islander in it.

00:06:52:24 - 00:07:21:05
Speaker 2
And it's definitely a next step. But you start with something little and we started yet with our students that were and senior Sciences level two and three that were also in while that of course gave me I mean these learners are in in immersion they are and it's not a Kura Kaupapa Māori we don't use to have a motto, but I suppose accidently lots of our teachers have got those ideas because they haven't perhaps been and could have got up before.

00:07:21:14 - 00:07:46:10
Speaker 2
But what you said Kia ora, that was really cool to hear about different ways of learning it. And yeah, these students that I'm talking about have been in our room. Lucky day. Oh, they've been at an up in or y or our fun years, 1911 for PTO and then they come in to Western Springs College for their  Chemistry or biology or physics or sustainability or cross curricular science.

00:07:46:10 - 00:08:15:24
Speaker 2
So it's quite yeah, potentially different. So tracking them became an important starting point for us. The other part of the context is that it's not done in silo. We've been working on culturally responsive pedagogies that's something that absolutely has to go hand in hand for a number of years and also curriculum development. So looking at [Māori] , how we are integrating that, I'm thinking about like on the cultural at the local contexts that we can be using but I hate for work to happen the too.

00:08:16:20 - 00:08:45:11
Speaker 2
And yeah, I suppose it is the big shift for me is a Pākeha and middle management and this kind of position of power was to yes I "help I don't know what I'm doing" and went to some people find out Whaea Bella what else can we do and they that attitude that it's my job to learn and my job to find out about what's going on.

00:08:45:22 - 00:09:17:15
Speaker 2
What firstly the you know, whether we're standing on what is this place, how can I connect bit. I'm not an expert in that, but I can learn that. And can it fit to the curriculum areas that I'm responsible for that I do know a bit about? Yeah. How can I then connect those things together and, also reach out to these experts a bell if I know me, know these kids, know the phonics so well and they could help me or kicks them or ring them of they might be in the middle of this other thing right now.

00:09:17:15 - 00:09:37:22
Speaker 2
They just they had that overview. So we can really close somebody with those heaps of houses with super powerful deans, I suppose. And again, a next step there would be to be working with more heats of houses across the school and that structured way. So the key things relationship between us as Kaiako critical relationships between us is critical and the learners.

00:09:37:22 - 00:09:56:03
Speaker 2
And if no major and I'd heard that many times I didn't really know what it meant until going through this process, the high expectations, it was absolutely crucial. Nobody was allowed to fail so that nobody was wasn't that nobody was allowed to follow. We don't have to not have this stuff. And they weren't allowed to not mess things in.

00:09:56:03 - 00:10:19:22
Speaker 2
And when you do that, you can't help that succeed. So we would put things in place, protections in place immediately. The clear communication was really important and it definitely didn't happen straight away. There were lots of miscommunications, lots of tears, apologies, lots of having to front up and say, I thought you mean this, but actually we're doing that and I'm sorry, how can we fix it?

00:10:20:17 - 00:10:43:16
Speaker 2
Really clear actions follow through on the actions and then follow through on the follow through. So making sure those things actually got done and that regular meeting really helps with that. So yeah, next step for me, asking the Tora what they think. I think it will. I think you talked about it about end cleaners and judge and very

Kia ora, that's me.

Viliami: Kia ora, and warm Pasifika greetings. Amanaki STEM Academy. My name is Viliami Teumohenga and this is my beautiful wife over here. And thank you very much for NZQA for inviting my wife and I to share our Amanaki STEM academic training with you all. 

I respectfully acknowledge the expertise and experience here today. This is truly an honour and I give God the glory for this opportunity. I want to also thank students and parents for allowing us to speak on behalf and waking up early in the morning to come here willing to inform the students of Amanaki STEM Academy.  

I was born and raised in Tonga. My father is from Neiafu and my mother is from Ha'apai, two different islands. I grew up in the main island and this is from my mom and she's one of the best. My father always tells us we don't own any land or any assets. Our only assest is our mind. Therefore, education is our only chance of a better life. 

I moved to New Zealand for any university studies in the 90s where I met my wife, Tanya. 

Tanya: So as my husband has shared with you a little bit about our journey to New Zealand. So to cut a very long story short, we were both sent here to go to university and we met at Massey and we didn't graduate with a B.A., but we did get a B.A.B.Y. 
 
[Audience laughs]  
 
Thank you. And so, oh, I'm going to get in trouble now. So as a result, so we had a child and we were quite young at the time. So here we were unqualified, no work experience. And now I have to raise a child that depends on both of us. And it was then that we realised the need for a qualification, because we sincerely believe that education is one pathway to well-being. 

And so I was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years and had two more B.A.B.Ys after the first B.A.B.Y, we and we decided we needed to go back to school and we also needed to invest in our children's education by being informed as parents, by being active and being present. And I would like to ask if we can play the video before I continue this story that I promise you won't be long. 
  
[A video plays on the screen. It shows a hall full of people laughing, children studying, a lecturer delivering a lesson, people working on a computer and people doing other things together in a community environment, such as performing a dance on stage. 
The video’s narrator says:  
The ASA (Amanaki STEM Academy) environment is just a real family environment. Everyone comes together. We're all doing the same thing. We're all going through the same struggles. But I feel like it's really important. Bringing having us out here is really, really important for especially for people in today's society who are also, you know, Pasifika, bringing all the minorities together. When I first started, it was I was very shy. 
So my confidence was like I was lacking a lot of confidence.

But when I came to ASA, I got to grow a good relationship with all the people in the Pacific community and as well as that I, my confidence in my studies grew a lot. I got to learn heaps of new things and got extra tutoring was which was really helpful. I feel like the environment that ASA has is very family like and it's very supportive. ASA helped me a lot like at school, even though I know sometimes I don't understand what people are saying, but I'm trying my best to like ask for help and stuff.

So yeah, but I really like I am really enjoying ASA and it's really fun. Not fun, fun. It's challenging. It can be challenging stuff. So yeah, like people started to like encourage me to stand up and stuff. So yeah, and I really like it. That's the other thing I really like about us. People always just smile and sort of just show you love and respect.

That's it. That's how I feel. So it's like a family. It's like you're walking through a family. And so, yeah, and it's really enjoying. I highly recommend ASA for many other Pacific students, I feel like it's very good to start when you're younger. Even though I started at year 12. But we have a lot of little kids now, so and they're going to grow throughout the ASA thing, so it could be really good for them. 

[The video ends and the audience applauds] 
 
Tanya: The next slide, thank you. So we invested in our child's education and she did relatively well and that is where she met our four other original Amanaki STEM academy students. So this group here, they are known as the Milo and Crackers Club.  
 
[The screen on stage shows an image of 5 students] 
 
And Georgia, who was here earlier, belongs to that original group of five girls. Now they come to our house every weekend, and during the school holidays, my husband tutors them in science and math, and I was the literacy tutor slash telling them off when they're chatting too much tutor. 

So the success of, of this group brought more parents to ask if my husband can help tutor their children in science and math. So the growth of ASA is organic. It grew out of the need that was identified by not just our young people, but our parents in the community. And the reason this is the photo we chose, because there are no photos of the girls when they used to study at home on weekends and school holidays, because when they arrive at home on Friday, I remove all their phones and hand it back to them when they go back to their house on Sunday. 

So this is the only photo of them together. And to this day that is the rule. Still, at ASA, where are the phones are removed in the beginning of the session and given back to all the students after the closing prayer. And I also want to emphasise that we are a group of parents who came together because we noticed that there is an elitist view of STEM subjects in high school. 

There is a thing I discovered called the Asian five and the Asian five refers to biology, mathematics, all the Sciences, Math and English is usually what the Asian students and Pakeha students take. Our children take other subjects. So, we recognised that a group of parents, because we can't afford to go to NumberWorks or Kip McGrath because it's $58 an hour and nobody got time or money. 
 
[Audience laughs] 
 
Okay. So we thought my husband, fortunately still remembers a lot of basic knowledge, math and science from high school. So he was the first tutor. And from this group of five, ASA grew into that group of 50 students. We currently have another on the roll and 50 students on the waiting list.  
 
[The screen on stage shows an image of ASA with text that says About us] 
 
Oh, so a little bit more about us. In 2017, it was decided that to formalise ASA as a charitable trust with a governance board. And our students, we have students from year 7 to 13, and they remain on the programme for as long as they wish to be. And the reason that we decided to capture our young people much earlier is because we noticed that when Pasifika students get to year 9, they are already behind in their Math and Science. 

They're already afraid of Science and Math. It's like: Oh, that's too hard for me, you know? So we thought, we need to capture them early and build that confidence and fill those gaps so that when they get to Year 10 and 11, they are either at where they're supposed to be or excelling because interventions that come in at Year 12 and 13, it's wonderful.

But a lot of our kids are already disadvantaged. So it's a bit too late. Our ASA alumni group is growing as well. We currently have 6 students at Otago University, 2 at Canterbury University, 1 at UCOL in Palmerston North and 1 at Auckland University, which is Georgia, and they're all enrolled in STEM degrees. One of our students is doing astrophysics. 

I've no idea what that is, but it sounds fancy  
 
[Audience laughs] 
 
[The screen on stage changes to a slide. The text reads: 

Our Approach 
Relationships built on genuine regard 
Trust 
Nurture confidence 
Wrap around support 
Understand and respect context, make up of our families and community. 
 
So everybody's been asking what is your model or what is your approach? The thing about a model is it's constraining and regardless how amazing your model is, if we don't have genuine regard and treat people like a human being, doesn't matter how amazing a model is, it's never going to work.  

So we choose to share with you our approach, our approach of genuine building relationships that are genuine, that trust that we, our parents and students give us, we don't take lightly. We nurture their confidence and we provide wrap-around support. All of that will be discussed later on. And we also understand the context. We understand and respect the context and around our families’ lives. 

You know, our families are not all on the higher end of the socio-economic scale. We have a range of families. You know, some of us, there’s 10 of us for example, in my house, there's 10 of us in it right now. So if you can, you know, that's the reality of our families. I think that 10% that was up here earlier, I think a lot of our ASA families can relate to that at some point and on some level. 

So how do we build genuine relationships? We actually take the time to ask our students what went well this year? What did you enjoy in ASA this year? What do you think needs to change and how can we improve that? So we get feedback from our students and we get feedback from our parents. And the thing is, we learn as we grow. 

And I think the advantage we have in being able to do that is because we are a smaller group. That trust, so not only do we have to earn the trust of our parents and family, but we give them our trust as well. So before any student comes onto the programme, we have a talanoa with the student and their parents.

 
You guys all know where you remember that. And it's about sharing expectations. And the biggest thing for us is commitment. You know, like, we're not we're not the homework group where you drop your child off and then you just go and pick them up after. Our parents are active, they are the backbone of this programme. Okay. And we're going to start crying, so. 
 
[Audience laughs]  
 
So I get very emotional when I talk about these children and their parents because, you know, at ASA, everybody is valued because everybody has something to contribute in any in any way that they can. So now I'll ask my amazing husband, because I'm going to start crying to talk to you about the weekly sessions. 
 
[The screen’s slide changes. The new slide shows several images of students at ASA. The text reads Weekly Study Sessions]  
 
[Speaker one] 
And the weekly study sessions that's run on Tuesday and Thursday. The aim of the weekly study is to compliment the schools, what the schools are doing and providing learning supports for students. Some of some of the students, they don't have any place at home to study. So providing that Tuesday and Thursday will give them time to study.  

Sessions are held in [unknown] is close to where the majority of our students. We initially run from 4 to 6 and we find out it's not really working. So most of most of them are play sports at the time or training. So we moved the study from 6 to 8 and enable all those students in training and the sessions start before prayer. 

If you look in the picture over there, I think there's been a circling in the circle. They sit in a circle and start with a prayer and then finish with a prayer. They go after they clean up, then they sit in the circle again. We provide a healthy meal at all sessions and it is really important. So they have a healthy body and a healthy mind and we use a lot of resources. Resources is really important for us.

For example, if we have a maths book, we don't have just one, one book, we have maybe two or three different books for Level 1 or Year 11 or Year 9 or Year 10. So most of the students, they look at this textbook, they can't really understand anything, but they use the other one, which is, makes them think: Oh, this is really easy. 

So we try and make sure we have enough textbooks of different variety. So again, so they can choose from. The other thing we have to really build our rapport with, with the with the students, the young people. But we started at the beginning when we start to have a calendar with them, with the parents, and we have that expectation between both of us, as Tanya was talking about. 

And another thing that when the student comes to Amanaki STEM Academy, I always remind them when they come in the group and then they see one of their friends: Oh! He's a smart boy. She's a smart girl. And then I stop them. So smart is not used at ASA. I stopped them because I said everybody have the same brain cells. 

I think biologists know that. I don't really know, I just read it.  
 
[Audience laughs] 
 
But it's hard work and one of the school in Palmerston North, it says to nothing achieve without hard work. So I have to remind them, that’s the motto of their school. Smart means that you work faster, you learn things faster. So there's nothing called ‘smart is hard work’.  

Someone learn things faster and someone learn things slower. Okay. And it's what we work on. If a young person comes in we know his learning ability is slower, we slow down and work with them and speed them up. It's the same way as you train as an athlete. You train someone from slower to run faster. 

Maybe ASA [unkown]  he's from Palmerston North, he knows that. And most of the time they look at the exercise book and go: Oh this is really hard. And I have to remind them we stopped that word too. Hard, sometimes it means it's impossible, but challenging means you can work through it and get over it. So those are the barriers when they come in, they have that mindset. But just remove a few of the barriers that we can see that helps him to build that confidence.

Oh, I can do it. And just and I remind them in every session that schools are very short, they only have 3 terms. And now why is it only 3 terms? Because term 4 is exams. So you only have 1 to 3 to try and cover your material. 
So it's really short. So after term one, two more terms left, and then it’s straight to exams. 
  
[The screen’s slide changes. The new slide shows several images of ASA students in a school-holiday programme. The text reads School Holiday Programme] 
 
One of our service offerings is the school holidays and the reason we offer ASA during the school holidays. We start at 9.30 in the morning, finish at 3.30. It's pretty much the whole two weeks because we recognised as the 4 hours a week for the weekly sessions is not enough time. As mentioned before, our students don't really have access to resources in the home. 

Some of our homes are overcrowded. They literally don't have the physical space to sit down and study. So the school holiday programmes, we use it to fill any gaps from the previous term and then prepare them for the upcoming term. We take them on trips that are offered to us for free, and that's about exposing them to the different areas of STEM so that it keeps them inspired and motivated. 

We have sports days and a lot of fun activities that we do to keep it fun because it's quite a long day. The senior study camp is one of the main focus for us ASA too. We recognise out of a need from our students and parents that our students need to be better prepared for the NCEA exams. So we run these exams for 3 weeks last year and before the exam we have an ASA family lotto to pray for the preparations to bless our students and tutors to be able to equip them for this holiday program. 

So the STEM camp, the highlight of our ASA calendar is our celebrations at the end of the year with the efforts and work ethic of our students are recognised, the commitment and passion of our tutors, stakeholders and everybody that helps out is honoured. And please do come along if you get an invitation from us.   
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Family. There are several images of people in a group setting] 
 
I want to spend a little bit of time on this because this is really what ASA’s about.

If you look at the photo at the bottom, it's quite significant because a lot of times our dads are not really involved in our children's activities or things. At ASA, you see this photo here, all our dads turn up and they're the ones that make the barbecue. The parents on top there, our family days are about regrouping, reconnecting with each other and setting the tone and the scene for the upcoming year. 
  
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says COVID. There are images of people in a Zoom call] 
 
This is our COVID approach. When COVID hit, we were very lucky to have had donated 50 laptops from digital wings. So when the lockdown happened, our students already had laptops. And so the sessions during the week moved to Zoom.  
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Outcomes – Academic Achievements. There are images of students receiving and holding awards] 
 
So some of our outcomes, our academic achievements in 2019, we had a 100% success pass rate for all our senior students, 80% or more of those. 
 
[Audience applause]  
 
Thank you. 80% or more of those, actually, endorsed with merit or excellence. We have 8 of our students from 2018 to 2021 in accelerated classes. The top student in Palmerston North Boys High 2018 was an ASA student. 2019 one of our student [unknown] intermediate LSC and we, out of the 8 ASA alumni students that have gone to university, 13 scholarships were awarded together and overall, they added up to the value of $152,000 amongst the 8 students.  
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Outcomes – Brown and proud. There are images of students in small groups] 
 
Our second outcome is our students having a positive cultural image or cultural identity. They are comfortable and confident in who they are, whether they are entrenched in their culture or not as connected. It's fine. They have a place in us because we celebrate and accept and welcome everybody. They also gain a little bit more insight into the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents to get them to where they are today. Because our parents are involved, our parents come to the weekly sessions they make, the meals they serve the meals, they hang around there and they are present. Kind of like the cheer leading squad while the kids are studying.

And that's the family culture that's created in ASA. The children see their parents every week at the study session, not just at the rugby game and the rugby practice. So for them it reinforces their education and work ethic, and excelling in academia is important too.  
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Outcomes – Navigating ‘both worlds’. There are images of students in a formal setting and holding signs outside] 
 
One of the outcomes that we've achieved as a family is our students’ ability to engage successfully in both worlds.

We have students who have been awarded scholarships to the NZ UN model. Grace, our Head Girl is the organiser for the climate change rally in Palmerston North. We have students who are on the Palmerston North Youth Council, so it's about for us it's not just being confident in the Pasifika space, but it's being confident outside, in the schools, in the in the community.

And our students actually challenge a lot of the stereotypes and racism that they face in the schools they attend. They now ask questions because they feel like they have a voice. And why do they feel that way now? It's because they all look after each other. They know they are loved not just by their parents, but all the parents at ASA take these kids on as their own so they come from a big family.  
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says ASA Investment each year. There is an image of a bar graph. The graph’s text says Investment per child at ASA each year from 2018 to 2020. 
 
So this is a interesting slide. Investment per child at ASA from 2018 to 2020. Our funding has directly benefited our kids. The bulk of the funding goes to feeding them and to resourcing. We have textbooks, we have fold-out notes, we know that the majority of our students have never seen a fold-out before, that's because they're so expensive and they're not readily available in all schools.

At ASA, we have fold-out notes from year 9 all the way to year 13. And the challenge for us there, though, is hustling for funding every year.  
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Investment as a comparison. There is an image of a bar graph. The graph’s text says Investment per young person $$. The graph shows that the amount of funding ASA receives compared to other initiatives is low.] 
 
So over here, when you look across the spectrum as a comparison, New Zealand education investment per child in 2017 was 10,000 is up there. Government flagship apprenticeship focuses on getting Maori and Pacific into employment.

And then there’s ASA. Just to put that in perspective. 
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Challenges and lessons learned (key takeways)]  

Challenges and lessons learned resourcing is a huge challenge for us. We have to apply for funding every year. We need a suitable venue because now we can't fit in the Pasifika centre in Palmy. So if any of you is friends with a Microsoft CEO, put in a good word for us! 

[Audience laughs] 

Post ASA, you know students on nurtured in the program from year 9 to 13 and then they go off to university and that support the support systems are not there anymore. So that's an area of learning. But, you know, let's not forget that all of us, including the tutors and the parents, are volunteers. We actually work full time somewhere else.  

Okay. Some key takeaways. It's about dignity, but it's also about sorry. It's also about, you know, as educators, you have a lot on your plate already. You have to do all your NCEA reports and all those paperwork, plus try and teach our children. So do you have time and energy to be able to build a genuine relationship with our kids?

I think maybe if you want to, you could. And my plea to you today is to please want to. You can come to our community, things, you know, don't just wait for us to come to school to talk to you there. 
You can go to one of your Pacific children student’s church function. You know, come and get to know us as a person.

Come and talk to us. One of the other things that I want to highlight today is that our governance board for ASA are accessible to our kids and to our parents. They don't just sit there somewhere and make decisions and we have to report to them. They come to everything that we do. They are active in it. They know the kids’ names. They know the parents’ names.

There is a genuine connection there because our children are worth it. And if we're not doing something now, then the current statistics that say Pasifika are underachieving in everything, homeless here and there. It's going to be worse for them if nothing is done. But I also want to add on to Georgia's challenge. We don't have to do this.

The government needs to step up and do something to bridge these gaps. What we need from government, from those in power and those who are able, we need you to trust in us. We know what we are doing. We know what our children's needs are, our children know what their needs are. We need your support and we need the resources.

So that we can mobilise ourselves. And please, expectations. You know, please raise your expectations for our children. Please don't tell them no, just take one science subject, because if you don't pass the other two, then it'll look bad on our school data. Please don't do that. Raise your expectations because we have high expectations of our children, not just academically but as human beings to be kind, to be respectful. 

That's why our values are embedded into this program. To be kind and respectful, respect their elders, respect each other. That is my plea to you. I don't know if you have time in your busy day. And I know that teachers there’s a lot on your plate. But I hope you make the time to really, genuinely get to know us. 

We have 2 Pakeha teachers who volunteer with ASA and I thank you, Mr. Milne and Rebecca Ward, for wanting to build that genuine relationship with our kids and our parents. I'd like to invite quickly children, our Amanaki STEM Academy family.  We're going to close with a hymn, to give glory to God. And in doing so, we thank you all for this opportunity to share our story with you. 
 
[The slide changes. The new slide has a heading that says Himi 114: ‘Eiki Koe ‘Ofa ‘A’Au] 
 
There's so much more that we can tell you about ASA, but maybe another time. If you want to know, genuinely, please come and ask.  
 
 

[Male host introduces the speaker who stands behind the podium on a dark stage]

[Host]
Michaela Latimer. A round of applause, please. 

[Slide says Michaela Latimer, Genesis Energy]

[Michaela Latimer]

All right. I've been told to try and cut this as short as I can, cause we're running a little bit behind

Kia orana, nisa bula, fakalofa lahi atu, talofa lava, malo e lelei, ngā mihi kia ora koutou.

Ko Remutaka toku maunga

Ko Te Awa Kairangi toku awa

No Te Awa Kairangi ahau

Kei Whangaroa ahau ināianei

Ki te taua toku papa ko Latimer te whānau

Te taua toku mama ko Morgan te whānau

Ko Michaela Morgan Robinson Latimer ahau.

He pou hapori ahau.

Okihine, e ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā ka rangatahi, tenei koutou, tenei koutou, tenei koutou katoa.

[Slide says Ngā Ara, Creating Pathways. Pou Hapori, Community Liaison Manager. Genesis. With you, for you]

I'm Michaela. I grew up here in Wellington, and I was wondering if you might be any of my old teachers in the room.

I went to Sacred Heart College. If you did teach me you probably told me I talk too much in class, and it's a real privilege to be part of today's event and in the next it does stay here 15, but I'll try and make it 12 minutes.

I'm going to see it. The problems facing our energy sector, the opportunities for rangatahi to capitalize on, and the importance of industry-school partnerships.

[Slide appears called 'An integrated business delivering value'. On the slide is a map of New Zealand and some statistics. The statistics show power station capacity for Huntly of 953, Waikaremoana of 138, Tongariro of 362, Kupe of 46% of that, Mau Nui of 7 and Tekapo of 190. 

The map of New Zealand shows existing LPG deposits in Auckland, East Coast, Taupo and Canterbury.  Genesis has the assets of Generation, oil, gas and LPG. It has wholesale markets in electricity, gas, LPG and carbon. It has retail markets in electricity, gas and LPG.]

So first a little bit about us. We sell electricity, gas and LPG through our retail brands of Genesis Energy and Energy online. One of New Zealand's largest energy retailer with around 500,000 customers, we generate electricity from a diverse portfolio of thermal and renewable generation assets located in different parts of our country. Hydro and wind generation make an important contribution to New Zealand's high proportion of sustainable and renewable electricity.

And our thermal gas and coal generation currently play a vital back-up role when it's dry, like now, and when there's no wind providing the New Zealand electricity system with energy security and supporting price stability. We're defined by our people and we foster a culture of inclusion, where differences are sought after and celebrated because this is the right thing to do for our people and because our business will thrive too.

[A slide shows whio and their ducklings in a river by some rapids]

For more than 10 years, Genesis has worked in partnership with the Department of Conservation to protect and grow the population of our endangered whio or whiowhio. If you're from the South Island, the gorgeous wee grey duck, who graces our $10 notes.

Whios are river specialists, and one of the few ducks worldwide that live year-round on fast flowing rivers feel require clean fast flowing streams and the upper forested catchments of rivers that provide high water quality, low sediment loadings, stable banks, overhead canopy and lots of varied invertebrate communities.

<Unclear>They are a key indicator of healthy rivers and streams. So the more breeding pairs of whio you can spot, the healthier knowing the river is now. It's like young people and needing to learn how to navigate the changing and fast flowing future of work.

[Slide shows an aerial view of a braided river flowing into the sea]

Today, speakers have already eloquently established why we need to create equity and STEM for Māori and Pasifika. Education is a key determinant of a person's future social and economic wellbeing. And students, we know, students who retain one or more sciences and math seem to go on to have greater career and study options.

This photo taken by Emma Willets, is of the Godley River, which flows and selected people before we generate from that at our Tekapō power stations. I like to use this analogy of a braided river.

The longer young people stay in the fastest flow of the river, the further that current carries them towards their potential. Too often our rangatahi slip into the slower, meandering flows and roots of more obstacles that make it harder for them to succeed. It's well established that STEM roles are highly resilient and the changing world of work, and this is how they hold so much opportunity for our young people.

STEM education is something that we are passionate about at Genesis, because we know that almost, most of the roles in our sector are linked to STEM in some way. I'm going to say some quick statistics, and I was at a one an hour with Naomi last week, and I loved her idea of standing the audience up. Plus you're probably ready for a bit of a stand up as well.

So we're going to use this proportionate room of around 400-ish people to represent our energy sector of 12,000. And it's kind of our that's our key energy sector, not even the periphery of services and contractors that operate around that as well. So I want to, Can I please ask how we got here? Can I just ask the section in front of me?

So like the first 5 rows, if you can just really quickly; perfect. Okay. There's probably terrible counting, but let's pretend this is 40 people. Now sector-wide women represent less than 10% of total trades and only 13% of the engineering industry. Now can I ask all but 4 of you in front of me to sit down?

Four-ish still standing. So this is now the percentage of- [Sound of audience laughing and Mikayala laughs] What I love is that your all teachers and you've been asked to do something, you all do it. Right. So this is to represent the fraction of those women who are Māori or Pacifika. I'm thinking you guys can sit down.

Now the next couple of statistics I'm going to use are from our Genesis teams, but they're actually reflective of all of our other energy organisations across the country and actually, in fact, globally, where we've got a huge problem in demand for more people.

So if we were to take this side of the room, about 60%, that's the number of people in our generation size in our business or the people who actually create and make the electricity. That's the proportion of people that are retiring over the next 20 years. Now for most of you, those are where your students that are currently your students, Year 9 through Year 13.

You're saying taking on those roles and filling them in the future. So, for the next 2 decades, that's the size of the opportunity, about 60% in the generation side of electricity that those rangatahi can be moving into.

Now I'm going to give you all a chance to stand up, so please hop off your chairs and I want you to have a go. It's where you think the average salary of an energy sector worker sits. So, I'm going to call it out in 5K intervals. And when you think I've reached about the right amount, you can sit down again.

Don't stay standing just because you're ready for a stand. All right. So we'll start at 55,000, which, by the way, is the average New Zealand salary. So 55, you know, anyone sitting right now? 60? 65? 70? Few. 75? 80? 85? 90? 95? 100? I think there was only 2 women that sat down, just at the back.

If you sat down at 100, you're correct. [Sound of audience murmuring] Everyone else can sit down and just reiterating that the economic and social well-being of young people are kind of connected right? So in summary, some of the problems facing our energy sector are an aging workforce, a skills shortage, and also rural and regional roles, which are often hard to recruit for, especially if there's not capacity being built on them.

[Slide is titled 'Decarbonisation of our economy will drive electricity demand higher'. It has a shot of the Climate Change Commissions proposed emissions budgets 2022 to 2035.]

And that's before I've even mentioned climate change, which is undoubtedly one of the most significant challenges that will reshape and transform our sector over the next two decades. Estimates from the New Zealand Climate Change Commission, POSIT, that in order to achieve our country's commitment to the Paris Agreement, we need to reduce our emissions by 36% before 2035.

[Slide is called 'Electricity contributes a small portion of New Zealand's emissions but is vital to the transition'. The slide has a bar on it. The bar shows that most electricity usage or emissions comes from the Agriculture sector. Next is transport, then electricity, then other industry. There are two opportunities. One is to decarbonise (take carbon out of the air)industries through electrification. The other opportunity is to decarbonise transport.]

This next graph shows New Zealand's gross carbon emissions in 2018. Genesis see an opportunity for New Zealand's energy strategy to focus on electrifying the transport and industry sectors, for example, and getting more people and businesses driving EVs and moving industrial processes from coal through to electricity.

Maybe some of you even have a coal boiler lurking around at your school. These changes are estimated to increase electricity demand by 20% and this means we need to significantly invest and renewable energy technologies and increase our generation capacity. Now this isn't from a verified source, but they're the thing that's doing the rounds in our office at the moment is that there's something like 40 years worth of investment needed in the next 4 years in order to start to achieve that goal.

[Slide says 'Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua - empowering New Zealand's sustainable future]

Genesis have recently adopted a new vision empowering New Zealand's sustainable future "Manaaki whenua, Manaaki tangata, haere whakamua" and we're optimistic about New Zealand's future and our role in empowering New Zealand's sustainable future through electrification and the provision of insights, knowledge and advice to our customers, large and small, to help them make choices that work for them in their priorities.

We know that inspiring young people, Manaaki Rangatahi, today to become the energy innovators of the future is an integral part of supporting New Zealand's progress towards a lower carbon future.

[Slide shows a Māori primary school student holding a laptop. The slide says 'STEM equipment funding applications open May 17]

So here are some of the things that we are doing to develop our future workforce. SchoolGen is an integral part of our national community investment strategy. For more than 14 years, SchoolGen has provided free educational resources to all primary and secondary schools.

[Slide shows a Venn diagram where industry, schools and learners meet in the middle. The slide says school-industry partnerships create multi-faceted benefits for communities. Industry benefits are working in partnership with the community, connect to a future workforce, outside-in thinking (unable to translate this idea), employment engagement, exposure of services and sector.

Learners can connect with inspiring mentors and teams, get access to workplaces, get knowledge about the world of work, develop career management skills, increase engagement with learning.

Schools can have more engaged learners, industry networking, access to industry technologies, improved pedagogy, professional development opportunities]

Designed to inspire somebody. Can I <unclear> to engage with STEM through learning about sustainability and energy, gaining the knowledge they need for the jobs of the future. Two years ago, Genesis established an independent charitable trust, the SchoolGen Trust, to provide STEM equipment to schools. As you can say, the next funding round opens in just a couple of weeks.

And we would love you to apply.

We're privileged to operate our generation sites and some of the most special locations across Aotearoa, and my role is to move between those community communities and the teams that work there to do more and engage in their communities. Our local communities are inherently familiar with us. We have pretty big assets. Most of our communities are in those rural or regional places with limited employment opportunities, and through our research and conversations with schools and our wider community, we decided the best way that we could empower them was to continue to deepen our commitment to the future STEM workforce.

Last year we launched our Ngā Ara program speaking direct to create transformational education, training and education pathways to prepare young people and those local communities to the future of work. Sorry, to prepare them for the future of work. Noting that our local communities of Rahui, Pukekohe, Huntly, and Whakaari Moana have strong Māori communities. Our initiatives are focused on Rangatahi Māori.

You've already seen that our sector and especially our generation sites are going to need to replace our skilled workers over the next 5 to 15 years. Ngā Ara is giving, is giving Genesis and our communities a head start on filling those roles with local people. Most of the roles in our generation sites of STEM roles. So, we're connecting our people as passionate mentors in our sites as learning playgrounds to help young people contextualize STEM learning.

We've chosen 12 secondary schools closest to those 4 key generation sites to partner with Ngā Ara program working together towards mutual benefit for rangatahi. This goes based on our and the wider community as well as our business. One of the most important outcomes of a program like this is that the benefits are multi-faceted.

I cut like a whole page here, so just bear with me when I catch up.

Right. And our partnership is also thoughtfully aligned with many of our iwi pattern strategies, which have so much focus on building capacity and capability of the people, particularly rangatahi. I'm going to talk through some of the initiatives that we're running, and I hope that you might get to replicate some of these initiatives in your communities.

So our energy sector underpins our nation's ability to thrive.

Yet our sector is almost invisible because of the way that we've so elegantly and seamlessly designed electricity to just sort of put in the background, right? At Genesis, my role is within our wholesale operations team, a team of 250 who work on all aspects of the actual generation of electricity. And this slide what I like to call Agile families, and they want to talk about what I heard Dr.  Te Taka say earlier, where I rarely hear students aspiring to these careers because you can't be what you can't say.

[Slide shows generation sites' job families. It shows the types of jobs in power generation. Such as Chief Operations Officer. Engineering has the jobs of civil, mechanical, dam safety and electrical engineers. It also has control and instrumentation technicians.

Power schemes has generation controllers, operator maintainers, fabrication engineers, hydrologists, chemists, maintenance fitters, electricians.

Operational excellence has data scientists, project managers, systems administrators and performance analysts.

Environment and community has environmental managers and advisers, policy and planning, community engagement, ecologists and scientists.

Safety and wellness has trainers and safety and wellness specialists.]

And this doesn't even speak for the 800 plus other roles in Genesis that are as diverse as legal counsel, marketing, I.T., data analysts, digital technology specialists, accountants, LPG drivers, customer service and communications, all of which have elements of STEM within them. As a sector, we're currently not doing enough to provide exposure to these careers, and this is what we're doing.

So firstly, we're co-designing educational resources, we are linking these to the New Zealand curriculum featuring big ideas related to the nature of science and recognition of mātauranga Māori as an important indigenous knowledge system of relevance to all learners, but especially to rangatahi Māori. At the moment we are designing them to be focused on wai: water, because in all of our communities, our kids connect to those rivers and those links that they are innately part of that make that they are made up of in things.

And just yesterday I was standing in Lake Rotokura in the rohe Ngāti Rangi  if anyone's familiar with it   And the role of not only talking about how we can bring our young people here, how they can understand this and then relate it back to how we use water to generate electricity and some of the conflicts that exist between that use. We're also making sure to include cool technology and how we apply it.

For example, getting gamers interested by sharing how we use virtual reality on our sites. So basically, someone can wear a headset and they connect it to any expert, anywhere in the world. We're weaving work experience opportunities across our generation. Site teams work placements enable students to experience the careers they're considering and see the relevance of what they're learning at school, which in turn increases their classroom engagement.

We know that work experience is also helpful for pivoting career direction before young people invest based qualifications that have little use or jobs that they realize they don't actually like. Sometimes in working with our schools have encountered deficit thinking with work experience and gateway in particular, where it's considered a subject for non-academic students. And we also find some school teams are disconnect from their teaching peers.

Work experience must be repositioned in your schools to be considered a valued learning opportunity for all students and the best practice we've seen is schools and regions who have compulsory work experience for all students, no matter what career, what, no matter what academic pathway they're on, which helps connects their learning. We're currently working on a major initiative to offer Genesis scholarships to Rangatahi in our local secondary schools.

[Slide says 'We're offering scholarships. Accelerating and enabling secondary students into the STEM workforce. Ngā ara - creating pathways]

Next month, we're bringing together rangatahi at all year levels, as well as school leadership teams, teachers, whānau, Puhoro and others, and our gonna of interest in community to co-design how we can best attract nurture and engage learners in STEM pathways. But the most important voices in that room will be the rangtahi's.

[Slide shows two wahine secondary students. One is wearing a virtual reality headset. The slide says 'We're co-designing educational resources. Localised curriculum resources that help young people join the dots between their mātauranga, their whenua, our sites, our careers and the energy sector. Ngā ara - creating pathways]

We're continuing work experience in the form of internships for those moving to tertiary level as well as those that are in tertiary. And we've already seen some of our secondary school students return to work with. Ask the following summons for those we partner not only with Pūhoro but also Tupu Toa, an incredible organization specializing in placing internships for Māori and Pasifika. Ah, a couple of our interns have been offered fulltime roles at Genesis, including one of my team members was this year.

[We're creating work experience opportunities. Secondary students have the chance to explore STEM career paths. Ngā ara - creating pathways.]

[Slide says we're offering work experience to interns]

[Slide says We're employing apprentices. Positions have been created in our site teams to train young people alongside some of the industry's best]

Oh, I forgot to flick slides, sorry. This year we've also established a Genesis apprenticeship program and we know that apprenticeships are one of those levers most correlated to success in the long term, we set out to find the best and brightest from within our generation site communities, and we were overwhelmed by the calibre and number of applicants.

We've now welcomed five new apprentices to our team, including a direct school leaver, all who have strong connections, in fact a paper to the region that they're working in. They join us and full time paid apprenticeships to gain practical hands-on experience while being supported and mentored by some of the industries best. In turn, they offer us their talents and their incredible depth of local knowledge.

We have a number of other organizations that we're working with in partnership through Ngā Ara  but our principal partnership is with our friends at Pūhoro. The first program through our partnership launched earlier this year at secondary school with close to our . And we're putting more on to Tongariro and  Waikaremoana power schemes and as you've heard that truly transformative and I know I'm speaking for the whole Genesis Fund when I say we are beyond excited not only to see the programs in action already, but just to imagine what their impact is going to be in future years.

[Slide says 'We've partnered with Pūhoro. Advancing Māori leadership and capability to deliver a world class STEM community]

[Whispers] I forgot the slides again. [To audience] The energy sector is obviously not the only sector grappling with the future of work, and I hope that in time we see continued investment from other industries. And I know that there's many in this waka already.  Through STEM subjects. We know that Rangatahi who can continue on the education journey. And so the urgent need for specialist planners, engineers, project managers, policymakers, iwi representatives, government officials and so on.

[Slide has a picture of whio with ducklings]

Young people are going to have distinctly different careers from us. Like whiō they're going to have to learn how to surf the swift currents of the changing world of work. But it's up to us collectively to help try and make that river a better shape for them. If we can keep our young people and that fastest flow by encouraging them to the pathways as well as creating workplaces where they get to flourish, then we together, will have done our job.

And in closing, and I'm speaking mostly to this <unclear> here on my left, I hope that I am sometime soon working alongside all of you. Thank you to NZQA for inviting Genesis to be part of this important korero. And thank you to everyone here who is doing such important mahi.

[Closing words unavailable]