The country’s first wänanga nursing degree is being shelved indefinitely after its first six graduates sit state finals this month.
The high financial cost of delivering the degree to Nursing Council standards plus low student numbers are major factors behind Te Whare Wänanga o Awanuiärangi’s decision to put the Bachelor in Health Sciences Mäori (Nursing) degree into abeyance.
The degree was the long-held dream of Te Kaunihera o Ngä Neehi Mäori o Aotearoa (the National Council of Mäori Nurses), a partner in the programme, that spent many years developing a kaupapa Mäori curriculum.
Graduates were expected to not only meet Nursing Council registration standards but also be competent in te reo Mäori language and tikanga hauora (Mäori health customs and values).
Lyvia Marsden, the new chair of Te Kaunihera, said it was sad, but accepted that the degree needed to be put on hold.
“The cost around it was escalating to the point it was becoming untenable for the wänanga to continue.”
Wiremu Doherty, the wänanga’s academic provost, said it had been a tough call, but with only small numbers on the degree and high costs, it had to consider the wänanga’s other 3200 students.
“It was a decision we didn’t go into easily and it was only made after weeks of discussion, debate and deliberation.”
Marsden said she believed all parties were still standing by the degree, but everyone was taking “a breather” until a new way forward could be found.
The six students sitting state finals this month are the remainder of the first cohort of 16 students that began studying in February 2009 at the wänanga’s Mangere campus.
Doherty said the wänanga’s original intention was to offer the degree from its home campus in the Bay of Plenty where there could be a better catchment of Mäori-speaking, degree-level students than in Auckland.
But conditions placed on the degree’s approval included that it had to be based in Auckland and cohorts limited to 30 students. Doherty believed both these conditions affected the programme’s viability from the outset.
The Nursing Council also imposed a number of other conditions that the wänanga had to meet in the degree’s first year, including access to library and research database resources. These were not met, so permission was not given for a second cohort to be enrolled in 2010.
The degree finally won full approval from the Nursing Council in early 2011, including permission for new enrolments, but by that stage attrition had seen the initial cohort fall to just six students.
It is understood that about 20 students were waiting in the wings to enrol in a new cohort in July, but the wänanga decided to ‘park’ the degree instead.
“It was at this particular point in time that we looked at the huge financial resources poured into the degree,” said Doherty.
He said cost wasn’t the only deciding factor. The attrition rate had also been too high, but it was decided to concentrate efforts on preparing the six remaining students for registration. He acknowledged that the programme’s language requirements may have been one of the reasons for the high student attrition.
Doherty said the wänanga told the Nursing Council it still wanted to be involved in Mäori health training, as they saw a huge need to be filled, and had not ruled out offering the degree in the future.
“At the end of the day, we were happy with the relationship we had with the Nursing Council.”
Marsden said she was confident of the six students' success in their state finals because of the nurturing provided by the kaupapa Mäori programme and the quality of their tutors.
