Quality education is an often-heard term that has no single meaning. In this paper, we use the metaphor of mat weaving to structure an exploration of various elements that inform quality education. To form the mat, a warp of literature-derived threads is woven with the weft of practitioners' ideas of quality education. These local perspectives…

Equity policies in higher education are focused on dismantling barriers and redressing inequalities that restrict the participation and success of students from historically excluded groups. In some Universities across Oceania, "underrepresented" includes students of Pacific heritage alongside students from low socioeconomic backgrounds,…

A sometimes-neglected aim of education in the context of Maori, the tangata whenau (indigenous peoples) of Aotearoa New Zealand, is to build Maori students (tauira) as Maori, a process that supports them to navigate the academic world as well as enhancing their "Maoritanga" (Maori practices, beliefs, way of life). Notions of educational…

Oralities research has a central place in supporting sustainable education in the Oceania region because it has the potential to reveal what education does and could mean to communities at the local level. In this way, oralities research can assist interventions that key into and make sense of local ontological positions. The Oceania Oralities…

This paper delves into the innovative use of the potluck, or "pa'ina," as a metaphor to reimagine a research approach aimed at fostering collective understanding between non-Indigenous knowledge seekers and Indigenous knowledge guardians in Indigenous contexts. By embracing the broader context of research, this metaphor strives to create…

This study investigated how university students in Pacific Island contexts coped with the shift to remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers aimed to investigate the social capital of a group of Pasifika university students in Fiji, New Zealand and Solomon Islands universities during COVID-19 and how they coped with the…

It is a rare event when senior scholars and actors in a field come together; more so when that takes place in the company of new and emerging scholars. Even rarer are such occasions in the Oceania region, where distance can mediate against key players coming together in time and space. When the stars align, the opportunity must be seized. This…

Donor-funded programmes in areas such as leadership development take place in every continent. In the Western Pacific, Melanesia has been host to such programmes based on non-Melanesian thought and practice over the years. However, a review of donor-funded leadership programmes in the region reveals a history of concern regarding effectiveness but…

This article takes a relational approach to Pacific leadership by presenting three layers of discussion. First, we provide findings from our research team members about the relationships between the Pacific community and school leaders' understandings of leadership. We include accounts of how leaders negotiate in context between forms of…

Sustainable development, like climate change, has become the new rave globally, regionally, and nationally. At the University of the South Pacific (USP), where I work, it is in your face when you open its website: "Excellence and sustainability in higher education". It is also assumed that most people in the world today know what the 17…

Case studies exploring how educational policies can help teachers serve learners disadvantaged through cultural marginalization are urgently needed to inform education systems internationally. The study reported here explored perceptions of Pacific cultural values at the heart of education policy in New Zealand that were intended to improve…

This paper tracks the education trajectories of a small group of Melbourne-based Pacific Islander (PI) learners who transitioned from secondary to post-school destinations, 2012 to 2015. Their school experiences were monitored over four years with the aim of identifying common pathways and underlying factors. The study found that the PI learners…

Researching and theorizing the local in education is often a contested space linked to deficit views of indigenous people by "others". Certainly, the intention to research the local was a consistent concern linked to colonization in the Pacific. The use of the term "local" assumes the disempowering of the knowledge and…

For Pacific Islands' peoples, relationships are of enduring importance. Yet, in spite of decades of aid giving and receiving, relationships in Pacific aid communities have predominantly been indifferent. In an era of global challenges, a new Oceania Education aid community is called to journey together to the common good through relational…

iTaukei (Indigenous Fijians) are experiencing rapid social transformation through urbanisation and globalisation. Indigenous knowledge is being quickly eroded by its conflicts with modern Western knowledge and values. To counter this decay, there is need, in the school curriculum, for teaching methods that can help students achieve, in their own…