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- Leaupepe Rachael Karalus MNZM
Rachel Karalus has a number of concerns for Pacific learners, including racism within the education system, the system's lack of cultural responsiveness, and the need to focus on enabling Pacific parents' engagement. She sees success as Pacific learners as "being who they are 100% of the time" and calls for Pacific learners to have the same educational opportunities as those with "sounder financial backgrounds".
Transcript
Transcript
Talofa lava, Tēnā koutou kātoa. My name is Rachel Karalus. I presently have the privilege of serving at K'aute Pacifica. My background is I'm half Samoan. My mum is Samoan, and my father is a New Zealander whose roots hail to Lithuania and Switzerland. My villages back in Samoa are, my mum grew up in Tulaele but our villages we are associated with Fasito'outa, Safotu on Savai'i and Luatuanu'u on the other side of Apia. Yeah. I'm one of nine children. I'm the eldest I was born in Samoa. I unfortunately don't speak Samoan and that's something that I can't no, I can no longer blame my parents for that. I have to take ownership of that. And that's one of my goals for the next few years.
The one that causes me the most concern is the number of children and young people going through the system that experience racism. I think that's a critical thing because how can you learn when you experience behaviours and systemic issues that diminish you as a person. So that's the, that's probably the one thing that really causes me concern. The other thing is around the lack of cultural responsiveness or cultural humility when it becomes, when it comes to Pacific learners. I think about my own boys at the school that they go to, which is a good school. But a couple of years into my eldest son's education journey, it became apparent to me that his teacher wasn't aware that he was Samoan. And so that told me that he hadn't had the opportunity to have that brought out and celebrated. And then, it sort of got to a point where he was even ashamed, which I think is really, really sad. Yeah. I would love to see the Pacific workforce grow because I think it's important for Pacific learners to see and learn from people that they can identify with, that they can connect to, that understand their context. And then in turn aspire for that kind of role or that kind of life for themselves. With the Talanoa Ako and the, prior to that it was known as Pasifika PowerUP. Just in our own region I know that the programme was for parents. But we had large numbers of Pacific young people coming to the programme to learn. 'Cause the Pacific population isn't like Auckland or Wellington where you have large pockets of Pacific people. So you can go to school and there's lots of Pacific children there and everyone feels at home. But here it's a real peppercorn kind of population. And so what we were hearing from the young people was they loved coming to the Pasifika PowerUP because they had people that they could identify with and connect with. And they could try asking questions and in a safe environment in a safe place. And then once they realised that it's okay to ask a question in that safe place and there's no consequences, no one laughs you could they'd then start to have that confidence in the school environment.
I have one of the other things that gives me cause for concern or I think there needs to be some focused attempt to ... I think there's some work to be done there, is Pacific parents’ engagement with the education system. I've had deputy principals reach out to me to say, "Hey look, can you help here, it's Pacific, our Pasifika parents are the ones that don't come to school interviews. They don't turn up for the parent-teacher interviews. They don't interact or communicate with the teachers". And I can understand why but yeah, I think one of the things that we realise from Pasifika PowerUP was that once you get the parents engaged in the education journey, they do start to take their children on the education journey themselves. To the point where a number of our parents went in and enrolled in tertiary education for themselves. And that's the kind of stuff that results in transformational change.
Often here, young people or learners, Pacific people talking about having to walk in two worlds. So at home, this is who I am but at school I have I'm another, I have to be another person. I have to be someone else. I think that success would look like Pacific learners being who they are 100% of the time and not having to adapt to some other kind of norm. So that they can feel accepted or part of whatever operating system they're in. Yeah, that's what I think success would look like. I'd like to see young Pacific learners aspiring for something more. I, we have an employment and training service and the vast majority of the people coming through seeking employment, having left school. And I would love to see more Pacific getting higher levels of education, more Pacific people aspiring for leadership roles in different settings. But unfortunately, while we try to encourage them, the barrier, the constant barrier that we hear is that "mum and dad want us to work" or "mum and dad need us to work" because just to make ends meet for that household unit.
And so, I would love to see Pacific learners leaving high school with aspirations for tertiary education and parents taking a longer-term view where possible. Because that three or four years that it takes to get, you know, decent qualification will actually pay off over time. And it's that kind of thing that will result in intergenerational change for families. I would love to see accessibility to education becoming an equity issue. I would love to see Pacific learners having the same educational opportunities as people with, you know, sounder financial backgrounds having the same opportunity. I think the thing about the system just generally speaking is that the approach is homogenous. It's one size fits all. And if that's the starting point then no, of course you're not going to engage people from a diverse range of backgrounds.
So I think from a systems point of view that there probably needs to be a more diverse range of approaches to whatever it is that we're talking about. So when I think about applying for scholarships or anything that involves online competency, a Pacific person may have the capability but not necessarily the online competency. So it's those kinds of things and access to the technology to apply online isn't the same across the board.