An ACT Party member’s bill has been drafted to “ensure universities do not allocate resources, benefits, or opportunities based on race.” ACT claims the “race-neutral” bill advocates for “fair access to opportunities” through proposed amendments to the Education and Training Act 2020. Otago staff and students have expressed concerns to Critic Te Ārohi, but appear unconvinced the bill will be passed into law.
The bill in question was drafted by ACT Party’s Tertiary Education spokesperson, Dr. Parmjeet Parmar. In an interview with Te Ao Māori News, Parmar expressed her opinion that university policies targeted at Māori and Pasifika students are unfair.
When asked if she could name five such policies, the MP, who immigrated to Aotearoa in 1995, appeared to struggle to name policies other than entry programmes for Pasifika and Māori students. One such programme across various Aotearoa universities is the Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme (MAPAS), which seeks to lift Māori and Pasifika representation in the health sector workforce.
Otago Uni has that for Health Sci, aiming to address historical inequities in access to health professional education for Māori and Pasifika people. Taking away this pathway for Māori and Pasifika students would affect scholarships, grants, financial assistance, accommodation, and access to designated spaces, rooms, or other facilities.
Otago’s MAPAS is the Te Kauae Parāoa policy, implemented in 2021 to support academic equity for underrepresented tauira. This includes those from Māori, Pasifika, and refugee backgrounds. Its guiding principle is to create a “workforce that represents the communities it serves [that] will improve health outcomes for all.” The policy (and its earlier versions) has been credited with increasing the number of Māori medicine graduates at Otago. As of 2023 (the most recent stats Critic could find), Māori make up 15% of the cohort – just short of their 17.3% proportion in the general population.
Porourangi Templeton-Reedy, Tumuaki Takirua (co-President) of Te Rōpū Māori, stressed to Critic the importance of such pathways for the success of Māori in Western tertiary learning spaces. “Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka provides a unique Māori student support system that nurtures, motivates and inspires Māori students to create Māori academic excellence,” he explained. “Without our current support system, we would not be where we are today.”
Seluvaia Ratoul, President of the University of Otago Pacific Island Students’ Association (UOPISA), told Critic Te Ārohi that the group was “extremely concerned” about the bill, which targets “lifelines of support that exist to help undo the effects of systemic and generational inequality – measures that were fought for, not handed to us [...] [This bill] wrongly assumes that everyone in Aotearoa is on a level playing field. This is simply not true.”
A University spokesperson told Critic that while more work is needed to achieve equity for tauira, they are proud of the success of support systems such as the Te Huka Mātauraka Māori Students’ Centre and the Pacific Islands Centre. They added, “We know from students’ feedback that these services are essential.” They also wished to remind students that the bill was still a long shot, requiring majority support in Parliament to become law, which they considered “highly unlikely”. At this stage, “students can be assured that Otago’s commitment to Māori and Pacific students remains steadfast.”
However, Seluvaia's message to Parmar, ACT, and those supporting the draft bill could not be clearer: “We are here because of our communities, not in spite of them. And we refuse to stand by while our right to equitable support within tertiary institutions is politicised and undermined by a mere draft bill that has ignored years worth of evidence and is rooted in ideology rather than reality.”