By SIMON COLLINS
Maori academics have started an ambitious campaign to achieve 500 Maori doctorates of philosophy in the next five years.
The plan would more than quadruple, in one leap, the estimated 150 Maori people who already have PhDs.
And that is just part of a wide-ranging project by the new National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement to "transform the Maori community to full participation in society and the economy".
The centre was one of the five new centres of research excellence announced at Auckland University yesterday by Prime Minister Helen Clark.
It will be based at Auckland University, with participation by other Maori scholars at Waikato, Victoria and Otago Universities, Landcare Research and the "houses of learning" Te Wananga o Aotearoa in Te Awamutu and Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi in Whakatane.
Auckland University's Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Maori), Dr Graham Hingangaroa Smith, said he hoped all eight New Zealand universities would join the campaign to achieve 500 Maori PhDs.
"For our part in Auckland we are aiming for 300," he said.
"We have 2000 Maori students here. They are all top-level students."
He hopes the students will be spread across all subjects.
All Maori doctoral students will be supported by a new support network, the Maori and Indigenous graduate studies programme, which uses the 45 Maori academics with PhDs at Auckland University to mentor 52 Maori graduates who are preparing for or have just started PhD studies.
Altogether, 69 Maori students are enrolled for PhDs at Auckland.
"Every fourth Saturday we have a meeting," Dr Smith said.
"We have lecturers who give of their time and might do a particular topic, from how to write a stunning paragraph to discussion of methodological and theoretical issues."
Two doctoral students at the Auckland University of Technology have joined the network.
It is now being extended to Wellington, and Dr Smith hopes it will soon span the country.
He conceded that the target of 500 doctorates in five years was ambitious.
Only 310 New Zealanders of all races, and 37 foreign students, graduated with PhDs from New Zealand universities in 2000.
But he said there was a desperate shortage of qualified Maori who could lead the next generation of Maori into the "new economy".
"If you look at the socio-economic performance of Maori, there is a need for change," he said.
"We have to have a target to achieve something, even if we fall short. And if you are talking about making change in society, and if you are talking about the utterances of various MPs about the need to shift New Zealand into the top half of the OECD, we can't do that as a country unless Maori are playing their part."
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