Double celebration for SMPD
Dr Sophie Nock was a graduate of Te Tohu Paetahi and is now Senior Lecturer on the programme.
It’s a special year for Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao - School of Māori and Pacific Development and Te Tohu Paetahi, the immersion Māori language programme. SMPD is celebrating 20 years, and Te Tohu Paetahi is marking 25 years.
Dr Sophie Nock began as a student at Waikato in 1993 on the Te Tohu Paetahi programme and first graduated in 1995. She’s now a senior lecturer at Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao and says the programme has made a big contribution to the pool of speakers of te reo Māori, “paving the way for the revitalisation of our ancestral language”.
The University of Waikato created and delivered the first intensive te reo Māori immersion programme in the School of Humanities, now FASS, in response to concerns that the language proficiency of students completing their Bachelors degree with a major in te reo Māori was not at a high enough standard to make a significant impact on the growth and retention of the language.
The one-year intensive programme requires students to be in class five days a week, February till October, 9am-3pm. “It’s become our flagship programme, and its success comes down to its design, the sustainability of the curriculum, the committed teaching staff, institutional support, and a continual demand from the community. It’s demanding and intensive because it constantly requires students to use all their senses, and it requires students to be absolutely committed to the language and the programme and to take responsibility for their own learning,” Sophie says.
Full-on, full-time study
SMPD gets a real mix of people, mostly Māori, keen to be selected for the programme – participants are chosen only after they have had individual interviews with SMPD staff. “Because it’s so full-on, it’s important that we get the ‘right’ people, who will work hard and will work well together over the year. It’s largely thanks to word of mouth that the programme continues to flourish. The students are our billboards, and they encourage their families and friends to enrol.”
Sophie says students come from near and far. “We’ve had judges, teachers, lawyers, chefs, we even had a husband and wife, both accountants living in the UK, who decided to return home with their three children and take a year off from work to complete the programme. We’ve had a dad from up North and his four children come and complete, the first came in 1993 and the last one is studying with us this year.”
Some students go on to complete a full Bachelors degree, so the one-year programme is a good feeder into qualifications other than ours, Sophie says.
National language symposium
The School intends to mark its two milestones with a national language symposium later in the year.
In its 20 year history, SMPD has had five deans. Professor Sir Tamati Reedy, Hirini (Sid) Melbourne, Professors Aroha Yates-Smith, Linda Smith and now Brendan Hokowhitu. “And we’ve had some real pearls of staff over the years too, including Professor Te Wharehuia Milroy, Senior Lecturers Haupai Puke and Waratau Houia,” Sophie says.
Sophie is one of four lecturers from SMPD who has received Ako Aotearoa National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards. The others are Senior Lecturer Te Kāhautu Maxwell, Associate Professor Sandy Morrison, and Lecturer Ēnoka Murphy.
“I think we’ve become well-known for our excellence in the teaching of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori,” says Sophie. “We’re attracting strong candidates in the PhD area, and we’re starting to attract some significant research contracts, but of course there’s always room for improvement and I think we’ll see a move into the area of indigenous studies.”