Education projects funded
The first two projects funded under the Māori and Pasifika Education Initiative (MPEI) have been announced.
Mt Wellington’s Sylvia Park Primary School is being funded to set up a project co-ordinator position to act as a key link between home and school.
MPEI aims to lift Māori and Pasifika educational achievement over the next five years by supporting community projects. The Trust has set aside dedicated funds for this initiative and Sylvia Park Primary School was the first project to be funded.
The school is setting up a learning partnership with the community. The aim is to help families understand how their children are performing at school, and challenge the school to consider its effectiveness in delivering programmes for Māori and Pasifika students.
One of its central aims is to drive up demand for quality education by empowering parents to ask the hard questions.
“We want our parents to be more demanding of us,” says principal Barbara Alo’alatoa.
The school is helping parents understand the assessment system and has promoted teacher Ariana Williams into the project manager role.
Ariana’s role is full-time and she is spending a lot of time out in the community, meeting families and understanding their needs.
She says its important to explain to parents what teachers are doing to support their children and she is trialing ways to explain the school assessment system to parents.
The school expects to be on the receiving end of demanding parents who understand student achievement data in the same way teachers do. Barbara describes the project as a learning partnership between the decile two school and its community. Half the students are Pasifika, another 30 percent are Māori, with Asian and Middle Eastern cultures also represented.
Also funded under MPEI is scholarships for UNITEC’s Graduate Diploma in Not for Profit Management. The aim is to encourage students from Pacific Island communities to enroll for the three-year course. This will be particularly relevant for the managers and board members of early childhood centres.
The selection committee saw the diploma scholarships as a way to build capacity and leadership within Pasifika early childhood learning centres. In total MPEI is funding seven projects, promoting Māori and Pasifika educational excellence. Details of the other five projects will be announced as funding is approved.
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