Te Wananga o Aotearoa

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Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is a tertiary education provider, specifically a wānanga, in New Zealand. Its name in Māori literally means "University of New Zealand" and it recently became the largest public tertiary education institution in the nation (and the largest indigenous peoples college in the world), delivering educational programmes across multiple campuses. In recent years there has been considerable controversy surrounding its executive management and Chief Executive Rongo Wetere as well as its claim to be a university.

Te Wananga O Aotearoa was founded in 1984 in Te Awamutu as the Waipa Kōkiri Centre. It was acknowledged as a tertiary institute in 1993.

In 2004 Te Wananga O Aotearoa received $239 million in public funding. In 2005 there were 22,000 equivalent full-time students and thirteen North Island campuses. The total number of part-time students reportedly exceeded 60,000 in 2004.

For several years Te Wananga O Aotearoa has offered Bachelor degrees, and in 2005 it began delivering Master and Doctoral programmes through a unique partnership with Curtin University (Australia). Te Wananga O Aotearoa also began to brand itself in English using a translation of its name "University of New Zealand". Under considerable political pressure, Te Wananga O Aotearoa ceased marketing itself as a "university" in late 2005. During this time, Te Wananga O Aotearoa had also begun rapidly developing its research culture, but New Zealand's Tertiary Education Commission announced a decision that systemic international comparison of research outputs would not be beneficial for New Zealand universities.

Te Wananga O Aotearoa has been widely recognized for its successful programmes in Computing (the Virtual Learning Centre programme), Te Reo Maori (Māori language studies), and Te Kura Toi (Visual Arts, including traditional carving and weaving), as well as for its School of Performing Arts which has offered a unique Bachelor degree with majors in Music, Dance, and Drama. While still a rather young institution, it has made notable contributions to research and creative activity in each of these fields. Despite a number of controversies, Te Wananga o Aotearoa has been widely acknowledged by politicians of all major political parties for making a significant contribution to the higher education of Māori, Pacific Islanders, and "second-chance learners" who rarely graduate from New Zealand universities.

In early 2006, following a turbulent year of high-profile scandals under the unstable leadership of executives in "Acting" roles and a "Crown Manager" in control of its finances, Te Wananga O Aotearoa announced that it had been unable to attract sufficient numbers of students to sustain itself through 2006, and would have to eliminate more than 350 full-time staff. This was an unprecedented number of redundancies in the history of public-funded institutes in New Zealand. Entire divisions - such as the School of Education and School of Performing Arts - have been eliminated in 2006.

At the graduation ceremony on 6 May 2006, in the Founders Theater in Hamilton, comments by Shane of Kawhia, in the absence of both the CEO and Chairperson of the Board to give a commencement speech, Shane asked the paraphrased question "I have a question – how can the Wananga o Aotearoa survive?". Answers as diverse as turning Te Wananga O Aotearoa into a bank based on the gold and silver standard came back over a cup of tea.

[edit] Controversy

In 2002 the wānanga was asked to review its cellphone policy, as it had been giving students free cellphones when they enrolled in specific courses. The explanation given was that many of its students had semi-transient lifestyles and could best be reached through mobile phones. Similar justifications are used to explain Te Wananga O Aotearoa's use of noho marae (weekend workshops) and distance learning formats for many of its courses that attained unprecedented levels of success among predominantly Maori students.

In March 2005 a government-appointed manager, Brian Roche was given financial control of the organisation. In May of that year Te Wānanga o Aotearoa was at the brink of financial collapse, and given a $20 million loan by the government. This unusual situation became a contentious issue leading up to the national elections.

On 15 December 2005, Rongo Wetere announced he was resigning as CEO of Te Wānanga. This happened after an attack by finance minister Michael Cullen earlier that month, where it was revealed that Wetere let about $70 million worth of contracts go to his family members. Several alleged rorts associated with the institution had received widespread attention in the New Zealand Parliament and mass media in 2005, and were also discussed in The Australian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Virginian Post, and other international publications. By early 2006 there was considerable public outcry regarding the institution's inability to produce convincing financial reports for the years 2004 and 2005, and audits continued to be stalled. As of mid-2006, the government had not pursued any formal criminal investigation of the organisation, however, steps have been taken to severely decrease its size and scope. In May 2006, Bentham Ohia, MBA (aged 35), who had served for about a decade as Wetere's loyal assistant, was officially promoted to become the new CEO of Te Wananga O Aotearoa.

[edit] Former Employees

In recent years, Te Wananga O Aoteaora has lost many academic staff, particularly in the fields of creative arts and culture. Former TWOA employees include the Maori King Tuheitia Paki, the CEO of Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ), the founder of Drama New Zealand, an Assistant Professor of Music at Boston University, and the Education Manager of the Waikato Museum.