Abstract:

The paper defines an investigation into the perceptions of international students about their introduction into the indigenous culture of New Zealand.

It describes a pilot project undertaken in an international campus in New Zealand as a part of peer mentoring programme in a postgraduate institution. The institution used this peer mentoring programme to support international students in their postgraduate studies. The peer mentoring programme has been in existence for several years providing academic support, pastoral care support and encouraging networking building for these international students.

The conversation about possible introduction into New Zealand indigenous culture, as a part of this mentoring programme, was initiated by our students to improve their own acculturation process. We started the research project to identify the acculturation needs of our international student in the campus. The objective was to investigate the students’ perceptions of this introduction into indigenous NZ culture and how to include it in our mentoring programme. The research used a qualitative method with focus groups. The topics explored included the need to include indigenous culture, how to incorporate it into the mentoring programme and possible future actions.

The research findings indicate that international students feel that the indigenous culture of NZ is an integral part of their acculturation and that they feel left out of this aspect of NZ culture. This feeling is based on the fact that their children get such an introduction into NZ indigenous culture in their compulsory education, but their own postgraduate education does not provide it. In addition, the ways of remedying this are discussed and presented.

Keywords:

International education, students' perception, indigenous culture, mentoring programme.