Equity, access and excellence have always been a core focus at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University. In 2021, our Senior Leadership Team committed to a new approach to addressing the challenges of equity and parity for our priority learner groups and responding to the feedback we have received from staff and our students.
Pūrehuroatanga represents a coordinated and centralised body of work which aims to remove institutional barriers to success as well as providing targeted, proactive and data-driven support for those learners who need it. It sits beneath the values framework of Paerangi, our University Learning and Teaching Strategy, and reflects our commitment to reduce and minimise the historical, educational and systemic barriers to success for all our learners, and especially for Māori and our Pacific learners.
Our initiative seeks to tie together the proposals and actions of several projects, including the learner success plans for Māori and Pacific students, the Disability and Inclusion Action Plan, the Student Journey Initiative and activating Paerangi.
Pūrehuroatanga is made up of seven key areas of focus:
- te kawa angitū - Ākonga Māori success
- Pacific learner success
- tangata whaikaha (disabled students)
- curriculum and pedagogy
- skills and readiness
- systems and processes
- proactive support and data.
What does the initiative involve?
Our objective of Pūrehuroatanga is to improve student success outcomes; particularly outcomes that result in an improvement in the student success measures of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). These are:
- participation
- student retention
- course completion.
These measures focus on university performance for all students, as well as more specifically on results for Māori, Pacific and disabled students.
There is no simple or singular solution to improve student success, the programme approach is to make systemic improvements to ensure:
- Students are prepared and informed for university study by the time they start studying at Massey.
- Students have access to tools, resources, and support to assist them to make sound choices in selecting their courses.
- Massey creates a learning environment where Ākonga Māori and their whānau, hapū and iwi are acknowledged as tangata whenua, and where te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, and mātauranga Māori are valued.
- Students of diverse cultures feel at home, understood, and supported so that they thrive and grow during their time at Massey.
- The academic offering is structured and well designed to ensure a purposeful progression of learning through a student’s time at the university, for on campus as well as distance students.
- Course design, delivery and support should be constantly reviewed and adjusted to align to the unique needs of Massey’s student profile in an ever-changing environment.
- The student’s journey at Massey should be as smooth as possible with tools, technology, communication, and administration processes that support the overall objective of successful student outcomes. Hinderances or obstacles in the path of student success should be removed or minimised.
He Kupu Whakamārama
‘Pūrehuroatanga’ references the Māori name for Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, which in many ways is more of a call to action, rather than simply a name. At its essence, it translates to the words, ‘From Inception to Infinity’. Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa therefore speaks to potentiality, and to the realisation of potential of both students and staff and indeed our university collectively, by way of learning, teaching and research. It is entirely relevant to this work, which seeks to advance outcomes for student success and retention at Massey University.
Pūrehuroatanga in this context, references the rich and diverse sets of actions, behaviours and practices that we (staff and students) undertake at Massey in order to promote, activate and enhance attainment, accomplishment and both personal and collective efforts. These are not necessarily prescribed by way of a set of pre-defined and specific outcomes or criteria. Pūrehuroatanga instead acts as a call to action, to ‘inspire Massey to aspire’.
Pūrehuroatanga epitomises an aspirational perspective for all Massey students and staff. By aiming our sights high, we can shape and develop a culture of Pūrehuroatanga across all elements of student success and retention but also more widely to be integrated across other dimensions of our work and enterprise. Both Ōritetanga and Pūrehuroatanga can co-exist, and both will play an important role in the work that we undertake here at Massey both now and into the future.
Guidance and support for new students
Using a cross-university approach we will guide and support students at university and promote student success. The three objectives driving Pūrehuroatanga using a cross-university approach will:
- Have an academic offering that is supported and optimised for academic quality and student wellbeing in order to support student success.
- Guide and support the students into the university in order to support student success,
- Support the wellbeing and achievement of students in a proactive and coordinated way in order to support student success.
Students can get help to succeed at Massey, including support from a Māori and Pacific approach.
Find out more about student achievement support