Growing Pacific capacity in the Business School

Sione Taufa has whakapapa to Nomuka, Ha’apai and Fua’amotu, Tongatapu in Tonga. He is a professional teaching fellow in Accounting and Finance. He teaches first and third year courses, as well as the occasional postgraduate course.

Sione is a self proclaimed "best dad ever" to his beautiful nine-year-old daughter who is an avid dancer and fluent in both Tongan and English. He is an equally self proclaimed "average husband".

Sione serves on the New Zealand Tongan Business Council as a board member and has led the annual book drive in the Business School called ‘Books for Tonga’.

Teaching since 2010 as a graduate teaching assistant, Sione has slowly moved through the system to where he is now convening courses and lecturing as a PTF. His career started with studying for an accounting and finance degree.

Sione had dreams of becoming a chartered accountant but at the end of his studies, found himself in teaching and realised he had a deep love for it. Teaching stage one students is one of Sione’s passions.

“Accounting is a core subject and around 90 percent of the students haven't done accounting before. I really enjoy bringing the ‘language’ of accounting to students and opening their eyes to what is a crucial life skill in the long run.

"Whether you end up with a mortgage or Kiwisaver or any finances with a budget, you will need accounting. It really opens up their minds to possibilities and new skills that can help them and their whānau."

Sione is an excellent lecturer and the feedback from Pacific and Māori students is that he is relatable and that he makes accounting and finance an understandable subject, something that many feel is missing sometimes in their courses. Sione reflects that this is the reason that he really enjoys first year classes especially.

“How often and where do you get to have the platform to affect change for so many, let's say 1600 students per semester? There is no other platform around. I mean apart from ‘social media influencing’. But teaching accounting and finance really is a way to share knowledge in a relatable and understandable way for students. With the rise of social media sites such as Tik Tok it is more important now than ever that we can teach through those mediums, and it is something I have been working on and have seen positive results from."

 Sione has often found himself being confronted with racism within the institution, both from individuals and across the wider system.

“I remember a really difficult moment when I was stopped going to the staff room at graduation. I was wearing a full tupenu and ta'ovala, tie and shirt. I didn't have a gown because I was picking it up inside the staff room.

"There was a white middle aged lady standing by the door and she asked me for ID. She said she was stopping me because I didn't have a gown. I explained to her who I was, where I worked and why I didn't have a gown. She refused to listen.

"I was so frustrated and I saw someone I knew and called out and they told her I was part of the staff. That was fine until a colleague of mine walked in jeans and jandals with no gown and I asked him if he got stopped and he said, ‘By who?' and it dawned on me this is not okay.

"I couldn't do anything in that situation because if I went back to address it with her I would look like the big, brown, angry guy but also not addressing it is letting her bias prevail. It was a no win situation for me at that time.

"It got me thinking, at that time I was the Chair of the NZ Tongan Business Council, one of the top lecturers here and I had the Tongan Prime Minister here as a guest, and yet still I was being judged by the colour of my skin at that moment. So I want to work my hardest to ensure that there are more of us here so that we are visible and we don't have to put up with that sort of behaviour."

Growing capacity both in terms of teaching and students in the business school is something that both Sione and Lisa are passionate about.

Lisa Filitonga is the team leader for professional programmes in the Business School. She has whakapapa to Ovaka Vava'u in Tonga and also Uvea (Wallis and Futuna). She started her university career as a student academic adviser Māori / Pacific, also in the Business School.

After studying and spending time both inside the University and out, she transitioned into her current role. Lisa lived in South Korea teaching English. She completed a Bachelor of Commerce at the University and was the first in her family to come to university.

“Attending university was a big deal and programmes such as ‘Tuākana’ helped me settle and have a community," she says.

"Coming back as an adult staff member I wanted to create that for our young Māori and Pacific students as an academic adviser. I am now in a position to create professional programmes for our mature students. What is really rewarding is being able to see people finding new interests and loves in these programmes."

Lisa also serves her community outside the University. She is the co-chair for her parish council and  is a proud Sunday school teacher. She says being part of the institution, she initially found it hard to find a place for herself as a Tongan woman.

“I initially struggled with reconciling the palagi institution with my Tongan world views and how I live as a Tongan woman. I thought I had to conform to be able to get things done, but as the years passed I learnt that I didn't have to.

What I started to do was really use my skills in relationship building to connect with those who were senior to me and lecturers who I needed to work with. The more I spent time being myself as a Tongan woman and just doing what we normally do in getting to know people deeply, the more it opened doors for communication with those above me in this system."

Lisa now finds herself in a place to help create change, alongside her colleague Sione.

“Sione has been instrumental in looking inward to create change in our system and looking at ways in which we can change the way we teach for Pacific and Māori student success rather than looking at our students and saying what's wrong with them or why can't they achieve.

"We look at ourselves and say what's wrong with us? Why aren't we providing accessible education and job opportunities to Pacific and Māori students?"

What both Sione and Lisa want to do is build capacity to ensure that there are young Pacific and Māori scholars who can come through and take over the teaching and pastoral care.

Sione and Lisa both share the vision that they don't want to be here in 10 years' time with no other Pacific people in their offices. At the moment, they have a handful of other Pacific staff but have to build more and add more to the kete.

“There needs to be a short and medium term plan for building capacity here and it starts at the top," they say.

"In the long term, we need to be able to offer more Pacific students the option to continue into postgraduate study. We know after years of undergraduate study, our families want us to earn money and give back, but there is so much more to learn that can be learnt through a postgraduate pathway.

"So we need to find ways to make that more attractive than just going into a job in business straight from undergraduate.

They say multiple job offers are a great problem to have as as student,  but how do we, as the institution, retain Pacific talent here?

"Pacific postgraduate scholarships and offering roles such as GTA/PTF would create space for our Pacific students to stay and create a pathway into being the next generation of academics. It just isnt happening at a rate which can help us build capacity, and that is the real issue."