If you google search “Pacific Literacy” or similar you don’t get much information. If you’re interested though, here are a couple of sites that I found with this kind of information. If you know of any great Pacifika-based literacy and numeracy initiatives please let me know in the comments. I’d be happy to highlight them here.
LN levels of Pacific Peoples in NZ
- You can go here for information from Statistics New Zealand. Scroll down for information collected from the ALLS survey.
- Data from the Ministry for Pacific Island Affairs regarding LN levels in the Pacific population in New Zealand is available here.
LN Initiatives for Pacific Learners
- There’s an outline of initiatives in the school sector summarised by the Education Review Office available here.
- You can read about the Pacific financial literacy framework initiated by the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income.
- New Zealand hosted a UNESCO forum on Pacific literacy recently that looked at current practices, challenges, and initiatives.
- There’s also information on health literacy initiatives which includes interventions by Auckland University and Workbase that targeted Maori and Pacific people.
- The Pasifika Education plan which includes a focus on strong literacy and numeracy foundations is here.
- NZQA also have a Pasifika Strategy here which mentions LN on page 8.
- The TEC also have an Adult Literacy & Numeracy Strategy that also references Pasifika learners and their needs.
Facing the Challenge – Book Chapter
- There’s a chapter in Facing the Challenge: Foundation Learning for Adults in Aotearoa New Zealand by Tony Gibbs on a Pacific Perspective. It’s not online, but you can buy the book here.
If you’re doing your own searches online, make sure you try “Pacific” as well as “Pasifika”. Hope that helps.
Don’t forget, if you know of any great Pasifika LN initiatives, let me know in the comments.