The newest Te Wānanga o Aotearoa site in Tauranga offers a highly accessible and technologically advanced experience for tauira.
It is also paving the way for tauira to transition in to higher education opportunities.
The 2000-square metre campus at 17th Ave Business park opposite the Historic Village was officially opened on Friday following a pōwhiri and unveiling attended by about 200 people including Te Taiurungi Dr Jim Mather, Te Pouhere Bentham Ohia, kaumātua and other tumu.
The noho-compliant Tauranga site features modern staff rooms, five teaching rooms, computer suites, a library, a workshop, a small gymnasium, cafe and a room for raranga, traditional Māori weaving.
It also houses significant artworks completed by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa kaimahi Tiaki Terekia and other artists.
Te Waenga Hoe Whakatere Jocelyn Mikaere said the new facility was highly accessible, technologically advanced and “a beautiful place for learning”.
“Now we have built it we hope more tauira will come to us because we think we have some awesome programmes here,” she said.
“We have awesome staff so we hope we will get more tauira through the door and help them achieve whatever goals they have in mind.”
Jocelyn said kaimahi at the facility were working closely with local secondary schools to establish secondary tertiary partnerships.
“We have 55 tauira enrolled at this point .... It’s about building our relationships with the schools and it’s part of the tertiary intention strategy over here.”
Jocelyn said Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in Tauranga was also establishing stronger relationships with other education institutions in the rohe and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi to ensure pathways for tauira seeking further education opportunities.
“If we can get them to a point where they’re ready and capable to move to another place I would like to make sure we can support them.”
“One of the areas where our tauira sometimes get lost when they leave us is they love the way we treat them but they struggle at other places.”
“I’m not trying to cheerlead for other institutions but if we are not delivering the programmes our tauira have identified then we will help them on the pathway to their success and build their confidence to go to these places.”
“So we want to focus on having good relationships with other tertiary providers so we can hand people over to them and actually receive people from them as well.”
The new site features a building management system that includes occupancy sensor controlled lighting, heating and cooling and has an iPad booking system for each room.
To find out more about what courses are available at our TWoA Tauranga campus click here.
For directions see below
