Abstract:

State Departments have long promoted targeted funding as a way of helping raise Indigenous learning and employment outcomes. However what can we do as educationalists and stakeholders if the funding is welcomed but so prescriptive and potentially ineffective to achieve positive outcomes for the learners?

In New Zealand through a collaboration of State departments prescriptive funding was targeted for Maori and Pasifika indigenous learners to enter into trades training.

This paper reflects on a real case study where a model of collaboration was formed between a main stream Tertiary organization and Indigenous tribes in New Zealand (Iwi and Hapu) to provide a more effective and culturally authentic learning experience for students in the Trades training area. The presentation will start with a very quick overview of what the New Zealand Education funding agency (TEC) were seeking to achieve and how this was disconnected from the Indigenous groups of learners being targeted. It will then examine the specific case study where Northland Polytechnic joined with Iwi and Hapu to create an authentic model of collaboration to overcome the prescriptive modelling of funding and through indigenous involvement in Governance and delivery increasing the chances of better learner outcomes.

The model is based on culturally authentic models of strategic planning, engagement, and service delivery. It examines barriers to effective education modelling and methods for overcoming those through collaborative models.

Keywords:

State, Indigenous, collaboration, student engagement, models.