Talatalanoa-vā: Indigenising professional development in higher education

While Māori (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) and Pacific pass rates remain low across Aotearoa New Zealand’s education sectors, focus persists on students changing rather than on whether educators are equipped to engage and support Māori and Pacific students. Many higher education (HE) educators in Aotearoa New Zealand have limited familiarity with Māori and Pacific onto-epistemologies, affecting their embracing of knowledge systems and pedagogies that enable these students’ success. He Vaka Moana Talatalanoa (HVM-Talatalanoa) is a professional development (PD) approach that explores changing educator practice by centring relationality through vā (relational space). We illustrate our approach using qualitative data collected using online talanoa with participants ( N = 24). We offer talatalanoa-vā to understand how relational space focused on Māori and Pacific student success supports authentic PD. Our research demonstrates how sustained and authentic engagement and experiential learning can assist HE educators to transform their teaching and learning approaches to improve Indigenous student engagement.