Within New Zealand nursing there is an awareness of a need for relevant safe and accessible care for Maori. One approach has been to increase the number of registered nurses who identify as Maori. Recruiting Maori into nursing has increased and statistics in universities and polytechnics indicate that the most popular qualification for Maori at bachelor level is Bachelor of Nursing (Earle, 2008).
Strengthening education and achievement is crucial to Maori retention and success in nursing and has been identified as a priority by the District Health Boards of New Zealand and the New Zealand Nursing Council. Rather than focusing on Maori underachievement the Ministry of Education (2007) recommends educational institutions and teachers shift away from deficit to strengths based models, and consider alternative education and teaching approaches to raise Māori achievement in nursing education. Whilst progress has been made in recruiting Maori into the New Zealand health and disability workforce (Wilson, McKinney and RapataHaninng, 2011), retention and completion rates remain lower than non-Maori.