I’ll just come right out and say it. If there were no extra financial support for education, I would not be attending university right now. Many tauira don’t have the luxury of a safety net or financial stability. Many come from homes that don’t have an extra $20 to spare.
Back in the dark ages, in 2017, before we had fees-free, 78% of Māori students and 70% of Pasifika students were leaving school without University Entrance. Of those who made it into tertiary study, fewer than half were completing their qualifications. Then fees-free arrived. Māori enrolments grew by an average of 14.5% and Pasifika by 15.2%, both outpacing overall growth across the sector. Completion gaps that had been stuck for years slowly began to close.
Nearly half of recent Māori university graduates were the first in their family to ever step foot in a university. For these tauira, fees free wasn’t a perk. It was the difference between enrolling and not.
Fees free also allowed for tauira to figure it out. To try something, find their feet, work out what they actually wanted from their education. Now you’re apparently supposed to know what you want to do with the rest of your life before you’ve attended a single lecture. That is utterly ridiculous. Some people do know, and that’s great. But some really don’t, and that uncertainty shouldn’t come with a financial penalty that follows you for years.
And here’s the thing. Fees are not even the half of it.
Being a student is already hard. Rent is expensive, food is expensive, getting to campus is expensive. Many tauira are working part time jobs on top of full time study just to keep the lights on. Some are doing it while raising kids. Some are doing it while sending money home. The student allowance hasn’t kept up with the cost of actually living. One of the few financial levers helping tauira cross the threshold is being removed entirely, with nothing to replace it.
Education is a long term investment. If you want quality in the workforce, why would you make it harder for people to study and qualify themselves? And then wonder why people are jumping the ditch.
E hoa mā, kia kaha te pōti. When it comes time to vote, keep in mind what this Government really cares about, because it’s not students.
Tauira Māori on campus
Tūrei (Tuesday)
Wenerei (Wednesday)
Tāite (Thursday)
Reo Māori Kīwaha of the Week
Purari paka! (Poo-rah-ree pah-kah)
Bloody bugger!
Kātahi te mahi pōrangi! (Kaa-tah-hee teh mah-hee paw-rung-ee)
What a dumb thing to do! / That’s ridiculous!
Kua hōhā au. (Koo-ah haw-haa oh)
I’m over it. / I’m fed up.
