University students push back against calls to scrap Māori and Pacific admissions scheme

A university admissions scheme aimed at building the Māori and Pacific medical workforce has found itself at the centre of a political debate.

While some politicians are pushing to scrap the Māori and Pacific Admissions Scheme, or MAPAS, university students themselves have shared more nuanced views about the programme, pointing out its value in promoting equity.

Leading the chorus of voices against MAPAS is ACT Party leader David Seymour, who believes the programme is “wrong” and “a clear case of racial discrimination”.

A New Zealand First candidate, Elliot Ikileili, told Pacific Waves he backed Seymour’s position, stating that, while his party did not have a position on the scheme, it was “against race-based policies”.

“The MAPAS scheme does have some fundamental problems with it, which is that it is very much a racially discriminative policy … so there’s no doubt about it that it is race based.”

MAPAS is run by the University of Auckland, while the University of Otago operates similar Māori and Pacific admission pathways.

The scheme was established in 1972 to provide a special pathway to train more Māori and Pasifika doctors at Auckland University.

A review was commissioned following the National-ACT coalition agreement in late 2023, which committed the government to examining targeted medical school admission programmes, such as MAPAS.

The review by the Ministry of Health has reportedly been completed, although there has been no public release of the findings.

Professor Warwick Bagg, dean of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, previously told RNZ the review should be released “so the public can judge its findings for themselves.”

“All medical students, regardless of admission pathway, must meet the same academic, clinical and professional standards before they graduate,” Prof Bagg said.

“Every student selected to study medicine at the University of Auckland has earned their place and is expected to demonstrate the competence, professionalism, and commitment required of a future doctor.”

Seymour previously told RNZ Midday Report that he had not seen the full review.

However, he said based on briefings he had received, it appeared “the review’s authors were under the misapprehension that their job was simply to show that some good might be done by this discrimination – not that it’s consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations”.

RNZ Pacific approached a wide range of University of Auckland students to ask their opinion on the scheme. Some did not know enough about the scheme to share an informed opinion, while others were indifferent to the issue.

However, those who did agree to speak shared unanimous support for MAPAS, with students strongly backing its role in improving opportunities for Māori and Pacific students.

Law student Sabreen Islam said that the MAPAS controversy is a “dangerous dog whistle”, fuelled by “inflammatory language.”

“I think saying that [MAPAS] is based on race, or [that] it is really dangerous, … the co-opting of that sort of language where it doesn’t belong … I think it’s a dangerous dog whistle,” she said.

Islam believes political rhetoric “for clicks and gains” does not benefit anybody.

MAPAS is a response to longstanding inequities rather than an unfair advantage, she said.

“Māori and Pacific communities, from my knowledge, have been systematically disadvantaged for many, many years. So these schemes are just trying to rectify that, and I think they’re a net positive for everybody,” she said.

Another student Jack Aitkenhead said he understood ACT’s emphasis on equal opportunity, but supported MAPAS because of the systemic disadvantages Māori and Pacific communities have faced.

“However, [MAPAS] promotes equity, where Māori and Pasifika have historically and continue to be systemically oppressed.”

Aitkenhead said programmes such as MAPAS come from a place of trying to make things fairer and equal and address historical injustices.

“In the cases where maybe someone who is Māori or Pasifika are in a higher economic standpoint, where they are still able to have access to these schemes, that is where it gets a bit of a grey area because there [are] people of other ethnicities, races who suffer from the exact same injustices.”

Final-year student Brianna Murgatroyd said programmes such as MAPAS, as well as scholarships targeted at specific demographics, had inarguably helped students access higher education.

“I have seen a lot of students really benefit from being able to have the opportunity through not just the MAPAS scheme, but like the Pacific scholarship. That has really been a gateway into letting people get into academia,” Murgatroyd said.

At the same time, Murgatroyd said she could “understand some of the criticisms [of MAPAS]”, although she felt opponents often misunderstood the purpose of such programmes.

“It’s important to understand the scheme in its entirety,” she said.

“It is a stepping stone. It is not for the entire time they are at the university. MAPAS is just for the first year, and so being able to really understand what it actually does will be able to alleviate the fears of this type of racial discrimination, because at its core, that is not what it is,” she said.

Another student Lea Nova Tisch said Māori and Pacific students were an enrichment of her learning environment, and MAPAS was one example of a pathway that opens doors for people who may otherwise miss out on higher education.

“I feel like the Māori and Pasifika people in my cohort bring so much to my learning experience here, and having these pathways for people who might not otherwise have access to this sort of education is amazing,” Tisch said.

She said the scheme helped counter barriers Māori and Pacific students continue to face within a “westernised” tertiary education system.

“I think that the university system in general, all over Aotearoa, is stacked against Māori and Pasifika students.”

Politics student Ife Ugwuedeh said MAPAS helps create opportunities for Māori and Pacific students who have historically faced barriers that “many others have not.”

“I think it is good for Māori and Pacific students. A scheme like this helps them become the best students they can be and gives opportunities to people who might not otherwise have them,” Ugwuedeh said.

He said the scheme was not about creating unfair advantages, but helping achieve greater fairness, rejecting ACT’s notion that MAPAS promotes “unfairness”.

“I don’t think unfairness is the right word. I think it is more getting to a point of fairness. We have made big strides forward, but we are still not at a point where we can really say we are equal.”

Islam said she felt that a common misconception was that Māori and Pacific students who go through MAPAS are “less capable.”

“The students who come through these programmes are just as smart and capable and have the potential to make a really big difference in society, just like anyone else, and deserve a chance to do so,” she said.

She added that after six years at university, MAPAS had never negatively impacted her own experience as a non-Māori, non-Pasifika student.

“I have never once felt threatened or impacted by these kinds of schemes. It really does not make a difference for me. If anything, it just makes a difference for people who really need it.”

For Tisch, supporting pathways such as MAPAS was a way to simply improve access for underrepresented students, and also address historical inequities. She believes those who believe in the benefits of such programmes were “very much in the right”.

She added that she did not agree with Seymour’s view on MAPAS.

“I think that [those] who are speaking out against [Seymour’s] racism … are doing a great job, and I would love to see them take an even stronger stance in standing up for marginalised communities.”