School Trustees who are Pasifika

Indicator Description

Proportion of Board of Trustees members who are Pasifika, in schools with large numbers of Pasifika students.

What We Have Found

The proportion of boards of trustees members who are Pasifika has increased since 1998.

Why This Is Important

Boards of trustees of state and state integrated schools must hold elections for parent and staff representatives every three years. A board may also decide to adopt a mid-term election cycle where half the number of its parent representatives are elected at a mid-term election (18 months after the triennial election) and the remainder are elected at the triennial election.  Elections for student representatives are held annually in September in schools with students in Year 9 and above.

Triennial elections were held in 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007.  A by-election can occur at any stage in the election cycle if an elected trustee leaves the board and thereby creates a casual vacancy.  Although the major changes in board membership occur in triennial election years, there is still some fluctuation in intervening years due to casual vacancies, by-elections, mid-term elections and annual student representative elections.

This indicator is a snapshot of the composition of boards of trustees as at 1 December of each year.

Active participation by Pasifika in planning, development and delivery of education services will help to ensure that those services are appropriate and effective for Pasifika students. Pasifika representation on boards of trustees is one key mechanism for participation.

How We Are Going

The data here is presented as a proportion of parent elected, appointed and co-opted representative boards of trustees members from schools with 5 or more Pasifika students where Pasifika students make up at least 10% of the roll.  Other members, such as school principals, staff representatives, student representatives and proprietors’ representatives are not included in this analysis.

In December 2008, 19.7% of the boards of trustees members in the schools included in this analysis were of Pasifika ethnicity.  This represents a 16% increase from the proportion of Pasifika school trustees in 1998 (17.0%), but a slight reduction from the corresponding proportion in 2004 (19.9%).

Proportion of boards of trustees members who are Pasifika in schools with five or more Pasifika students and Pasifika students make up at least 10% of the roll (1998 to 2008)

The proportion of Pasifika on boards of trustees is lower than the proportion of Pasifika students in these schools (34.6% in 2008).  This is largely due to demographics; the proportion of the school age population who are Pasifika is considerably higher than the proportion of the population aged 25-50 who are Pasifika.  However, while the proportion of Pasifika students in these schools has increased slightly since 2004, the small decline in Pasifika board representation means that this gap has increased slightly in recent years.
 
In 2008, 56.7% of Pasifika trustees were female, an increase of 2.0 percentage points since 1998.  In comparison, 52.6% of all non-Pasifika trustee members in these schools in 2008 were women.

Where To Find Out More

To obtain information on the proportion of Māori representatives, consider indicator:

• School Trustees who are Māori

References

Mill, A. (2007). Results of the School Board of Trustees Elections: 2007. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education (2004): Working in Partnership: Information for New School Trustees 2004 – 2007. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Related Pages on Education Counts

The Boards of Trustees data collection page provides links to data, publications and indicators based on that collection.