Te Wananga o Aotearoa

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Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is a tertiary education provider, specifically a wānanga, in New Zealand. Its name, which is in Māori, literally means "University of New Zealand" and it recently became the largest public tertiary education institution in the nation (and the largest indigenous peoples college in the world), delivering educational programmes across multiple campuses.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa was founded as a private training establishment called the Waipā Kōkiri Centre in 1984 in Te Awamutu. The institution was acknowledged as a tertiary institute in 1993[citation needed], when it became known as Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

In 2004 Te Wānanga o Aotearoa received $239 million in public funding. In 2005 there were 22,000 equivalent full-time students and thirteen North Island campuses. The total number of part-time students reportedly exceeded 60,000 in 2004[citation needed].

For several years Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has offered Bachelor degrees, and in 2005 it began delivering Master and Doctoral programmes through a unique partnership with Curtin University in Australia. Te Wānanga o Aotearoa also began to brand itself in English using a translation of its name "University of New Zealand". Under considerable political pressure, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa ceased marketing itself as a "university" in late 2005. During this time, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa had also begun rapidly developing its research culture, but New Zealand's Tertiary Education Commission announced a decision that systemic international comparison of research outputs would not be beneficial for New Zealand universities[citation needed].

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[edit] Importance

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has been widely recognized for its successful programmes in computing (the Virtual Learning Centre programme), te reo Māori (Māori language studies), and Te Kura Toi (visual arts, including traditional carving and weaving), as well as for its School of Performing Arts which has offered a unique Bachelor degree with majors in music, dance and drama. While still a young institution, it has made notable contributions to research and creative activity in each of these fields. Despite a number of controversies, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has been widely acknowledged by politicians of all major political parties for making a significant contribution to the higher education of Māori, Pacific Islanders and "second-chance learners".

[edit] Recent developments

[edit] Cellphone controversy (2002)

In 2002 the wānanga was asked to review its cellphone policy, as it had been giving students free cellphones when they enrolled in specific courses. The explanation given was that many of its students had semi-transient lifestyles and could best be reached through mobile phones. Similar justifications are used to explain Te Wānanga o Aotearoa's use of noho marae (weekend workshops) and distance learning formats for many of its courses that attained unprecedented levels of enrolment among predominantly Māori students[citation needed].

[edit] Financial crisis (2005)

In March 2005 a government-appointed manager, Brian Roche, was given financial control of the organisation. In May of that year, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa was at the brink of financial collapse, and given a $20 million loan by the government. This unusual situation became a contentious issue leading up to the national elections[citation needed].

On 15 December 2005, Rongo Wetere announced he was resigning as CEO of Te Wānanga. This happened after an attack by finance minister Michael Cullen earlier that month, where it was revealed that Wetere let about $70 million worth of contracts go to his family members[citation needed]. Several alleged rorts / frauds associated with the institution had received widespread attention in the New Zealand Parliament and mass media in 2005, and were also discussed in The Australian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Virginian Post, and other international publications[citation needed]. By early 2006 there was considerable public outcry regarding the institution's inability to produce convincing financial reports for the years 2004 and 2005, and audits continued to be stalled. As of mid-2006, the government had not pursued any formal criminal investigation of the organisation, however, steps had been taken to severely decrease its size and scope. In May 2006, Bentham Ohia, MBA (aged 35), who had served for about a decade as Wetere's assistant, was officially promoted to CEO of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

[edit] Redundancies (2006)

In early 2006, following a turbulent year of high-profile scandals under the unstable leadership of executives in "Acting" roles and a "Crown Manager" in control of its finances, Te Wananga O Aotearoa announced that it had been unable to attract sufficient numbers of students to sustain itself through 2006, and would have to eliminate more than 350 full-time staff. This was an unprecedented number of redundancies in the history of public-funded institutes in New Zealand. Entire divisions such as the School of Education and School of Performing Arts were eliminated in 2006.[citation needed]

[edit] Name translation controversy

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa's use of a direct translation of its name "University of New Zealand" was controversial because that was also the name of an earlier university that was later dissolved into its constituent colleges. Moreover, the use of the title "University" is protected by New Zealand legislation, and reserved to a limited number of educational institutes. See University of New Zealand for more details of the controversy.

[edit] Former employees

The Maori King Tuheitia Paki formerly worked as a tutor for the wananga. Other former employees include the Executive Director of Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ), the founder and past President of Drama New Zealand and current CEO of Drama Magic Ltd., a Professor of Music at the Sibelius Academy, the Dean of Arts and Languages at San Diego Mesa College, and the Education Manager of the Waikato Museum.

[edit] External links