Top students prepare for graduation

Top EIT students prepare to graduate and parade the streets. Photo / File

For the second successive year, EIT is staging a two-day event to celebrate the large number of alumni graduating with higher qualifications.

About 820 scholars - resplendent in the bat-winged gowns, multi-coloured lined hoods and sashes and tasselled trenchers traditionally associated with graduation - are to be awarded diplomas, bachelor degrees and post-graduate qualifications in three ceremonies being held on Thursday and Friday (March 26 and 27) in Napier's Municipal Theatre.

Spreading the graduation ceremony over two days allows graduands to invite more guests to their capping.

The city is also hosting three parades. EIT council members, senior executive and academic staff will join jubilant graduands and graduates as they assemble at Clive Square for the celebratory walk down Emerson St to the Sound Shell on Marine Parade.

Just over 820 higher qualifications are to be awarded for 2014 - in line with last year's record graduation.

The proportion of Maori graduates continues to track well above the region's demographic, and has grown from 32 per cent to 34 per cent over the last year. Of more than 100 post graduates, 18 are Maori.

The proportion of younger people gaining higher-level qualifications from EIT is on par with 2013. More than 40 per cent of Hawke's Bay diploma and degree graduates are under 25.

At Thursday afternoon's ceremony, graduands in business, computing systems, information technology, wine science, professional chef practice, tourism and travel, design technology and professional accounting will be capped.

Friday morning's ceremony encompasses graduates in early childhood education, applied social sciences, visual arts and design, screen production and Maori. Nursing, health science and recreation and sport graduands will be conferred with their qualifications in the afternoon.

As honoured achievers, three valedictorians - Rawinia Paterson (Bachelor of Arts, Maori), Nikky Heasley (Bachelor of Business Studies)and Nayda Heays (Bachelor of Nursing) - will represent fellow graduates in addressing friends, family and academics filling the Municipal Theatre.

Guest speakers at the graduation ceremonies will be former EIT deputy chief executive Claire Hague, chair of Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated Ngahiwi Tomoana and chief executive of Napier-based telecommunications company NOW, Hamish White.

Special guests will include Joan Twist, widow of former EIT Council chairman Tim Twist, former EIT chief executive Bruce Martin and his wife Allison and Marsley Northover, wife of late EIT kaumatua Joe Northover.