Indigenisation of the nursing curriculum: Peeling back to reveal the unspoken

Globally, there is an underrepresentation of Indigenous populations in higher education (United Nations, n.d.). The Aotearoa experience by Māori and tagata Pasifika of marginalisation in education is a consequence of a plethora of challenges, hegemonic ideation and strategic assimilation authorised by the government of the day (Smith, 2003). A move in tertiary education, including nursing education, towards indigenised curricula heralds an opportunity to address inequity and structures that have oppressed education experiences for Indigenous peoples. This article prefaces a research project that will investigate how Whitireia | Te Pūkenga has successfully indigenised nursing curricula over the last 17 years. The Bachelor of Nursing Māori (BNM) and Bachelor of Nursing Pacific (BNP) programmes offer unique indigenised curricula with the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) running alongside these programmes to assimilate this new indigenised nursing curriculum approach. This article focuses on the scoping phase of this research that seeks to demystify, unpack and clarify how the indigenisation of a national nursing curriculum is relational at the local level. Ngāti Toarangatira and hāpori Māori were involved as co-designers, having kuia koroua as consultants in all aspects of the programme life, from decision making, to complaints to marketing to engaging on marae, and the services provided by iwi and hapori Māori. Working in partnership has been successfully achieved, with each programme retaining its autonomy. The heads of each programme are the researchers, who also founded Te Kawenata Tapuhi, which has at its core principles that govern our working relationships that are mana animating. The researchers share the path thus far as part of their poutama, the weaving of a whāriki. This article and research are a deliberate attempt to provide evidence to support successful indigenisation and to counter the recent ferocious debate that has resulted from this process. This debate has resulted in exposing an underbelly of white fragility (DiAngelo, 2011) and entrenched institutional racism within the leadership and structures of nursing education. This reaction (which lacked any informed discourse nationally or with tāngata whenua and tagata Pasifika1) seems to directly oppose the urgency and opportunity for nursing education to lead the way in indigenisation, instead presenting a polarising public debate. The researchers will offer some insights from their experiences of Kawenata that may support the transformation needed throughout all health provision to better meet the health outcomes of their communities. Working under the leadership of tāngata whenua, tagata Pasifika and their allies is critical to success.