Culturally sustaining leadership, and Pasifika children succeeding as Pasifika, are of strategic importance to education in Aotearoa. These goals are also vital for self-determining Pasifika communities. We use the term "Pasifika" (or "Pacific" if other writers have used this) to refer to peoples from the Pacific Islands with unique cultures, languages, and identities. Policymakers’ intentions have been to build leadership capacity across the profession (Education Council, 2018a, 2018b), to strengthen teachers’ cultural competencies for supporting Pacific learners (Ministry of Education, 2018), and to improve participation of and outcomes for Pacific learners through several education plans. However, the idea that educational leadership can be enriched by Pasifika Indigenous knowledge is yet to be acknowledged as a legitimate way to promote Pasifika children’s success in this country. The significance of leadership lies not in its hierarchies, but in its potential to contribute to a better world for all. Hence, in this article, we focus on what leadership means if its purpose is to contribute to a better world for Pasifika children in early childhood education (ECE). As we write this article, we think about who and what we bring with us to this place of reflection, honouring our ancestors who guide us in different ways. We also think about the unique cultural lenses we bring to our shared work. The ideas we share derive from our research project which involved the first two authors from the University of Auckland, and Pasifika Early Learning (PEL) (AoKids). Our project provided a platform for the leaders and teachers of PEL’s ECE centres to contribute to the conceptualisation of leadership grounded in Pasifika Indigenous knowledge and experience. This collaboration led us to collectively develop Le Malaga, a framework of leadership principles, which we introduce in this article. Practice and Policy Tensions Pasifika peoples have a strong place in ECE in Aotearoa. Currently, approximately 14,605 Pacific children and 2,395 Pacific teachers are part of licensed ECE services (Education Counts, 2023b, 2023c). These numbers warrant serious consideration for ways that Pasifika Indigenous knowledge underpins leadership practices to support Pasifika children’s educational experiences, unique cultures, languages, and identities. The establishment of Pacific ECE services in Aotearoa in the 1970s and 80s led the way in terms of preserving and nourishing Pacific language and culture of young children (Togiaso, 2021). However, despite Pacific children experiencing the largest jump in ECE participation to date, from 86% in 2011 to 93% in 2021 (Ministry of Education, 2021), Pacific medium services (where teaching is in a Pacific language at least 51% of the time) declined in number from 132 to 118 between 2016 and 2020, and now represent only 3% of all licensed services (Ministry for Pacific Peoples, 2020). These changes have occurred against a backdrop of increasing enrolments of all children in education and care centres from 156,187 in 2011 to 194,697 in 2021 (Education Counts, 2023a). This situation suggests that most Pasifika children attend English medium ECE services, raising a question about how well these children are supported by educational leaders and teachers who draw on Pasifika Indigenous knowledge as part of a culturally sustaining education. Underlining this tension is the fact that Pasifika ways of knowing, being, and doing are hardly visible in discourses of leadership in ECE in Aotearoa (Cooper & Matapo, 2021). Understanding the agenda for leadership as outlined in relevant policies can help ECE leaders and teachers of Pacific children to respond to these tensions. For example, Tapasā, the Ministry of Education’s (2018) cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners, provides practice guidance for leaders and teachers that can contribute to quality educational provision for these learners. While the emphasis on culture and leaders may stimulate much-needed conversations By Maria Cooper, Louise Gorst, with Pasifika Early Learning (AoKids) Le Malaga, a Return to Wisdom: a Pasifika Indigenous Framework for Leadership in ECE March 2023 { 18 }
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