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Download AudioAuckland University of Technology’s new professor of business has a message for other Māori – give university ago.
Ella Henry says she was the first in her whānau to go to university when she started 40 years ago, and like many young Māori, didn’t have the best experience at high school.
She says too many Māori don’t take up tertiary study because they don’t think they’re smart enough.
“I know how smart we are. I deal with smart people all the time. You don’t have to go to university to be smart but it’s really lovely when you have that discovery later in life that you love reading, you love thinking deeply, and you love being with students and being a scholar and that is a revelation and it’s a wonderful empowering joy for our people,” Professor Henry says.
She says formal education gives people chances to transform their whānau and communities, which is what most Māori want.
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