Introduction: contributing to dialogue about Pacific Islands educational issues

This edited book engages with topics ranging across the educational spectrum from school to university and includes perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders including leaders, teachers, parents and students. Some of the pressing concerns within Pacific Island educational systems continue to be literacy, numeracy and educational leadership. This book presents research which specifically addresses these topics. This volume aims to contribute to the ongoing rich dialogue about Pacific Islands’ educational issues in order to help forge positive and healthy school ecosystems that values equality, diversity, community engagement, fruitful citizenship, proactive school leadership and valuable student learning that drives an educated Pacific Islands population into the future. Overcoming educational issues can, in part, be facilitated through the Pacific approach of Talanga. The chapters here are a collection of articles presented at Talanga: The School of Education Seminar Series, at The University of the South Pacific. The lead editor of this volume serves as Convener of the seminar series, and when this current volume was compiled, the seminar series was at its 121st session. This current volume is the second edited book from the seminar series. Talanga is a Tongan concept and word, imbuing purposeful interaction, dialogue and collaboration

Āwhina Revolution: A Bayesian Analysis of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Completion Rates from a Program for Māori and Pacific Success in STEM Disciplines

Māori and Pacific students generally do not attain the same levels of tertiary success as New Zealanders of European descent, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Te Rōpū Āwhina (Āwhina), an equity initiative at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand between 1999 and 2015, aimed to produce Māori and Pacific professionals in STEM disciplines who contribute to Māori and Pacific community development and leadership. A hierarchical Bayesian approach was used to estimate posterior standardized completion rates for 3-year undergraduate and 2-year postgraduate degrees undertaken by non-Māori-Pacific and Māori-Pacific students. Results were consistent with an Āwhina effect, that is, Āwhina's positive influence on (combined) Māori and Pacific success