Growing up in a rural township in the Bay of Plenty provided Tanisha Jones with few opportunities for getting ahead.
“Education, especially, was never really encouraged,” the Flaxmere mother-of-four recalls.
Now into the final year of her Bachelor of Business Studies at EIT Hawke’s Bay, Tanisha feels she and husband Te Maia Jones are showing their young family how it’s done.
“I want my own children to know not only through words but also by our actions that they can achieve anything they want in this life through hard work and determination. I want them to see education as a good starting point to leading them in the right direction.”
Ever since leaving high school, Tanisha has wanted to be a chartered accountant so, when the family moved to Hawke’s Bay and her youngest turned two, she enrolled at EIT.
“I finally though, after eight years of being a stay-at-home mum, to do something for myself. As a full-time mum, everything revolves around your family and you never seem to find time for yourself.”
By including her own needs in the mix, Tanisha is well on the way to completing her degree and is already thinking about her next goal, working towards becoming an associate chartered accountant.
“I eventually want to become a top executive in a large company.”
Tanisha loves the student interaction at EIT, finding it has helped her get back into study mode.
“I’ve worked hard,” she says, “and to finally complete this qualification would be absolutely awesome. I feel it would give me so much leverage when applying for work, especially coming from such a reputable tertiary institute.
“It’s not just a teacher-student relationship,” she says of the rapport she has developed with some of her lecturers. “They genuinely care, not only about your studies, but about where you want to go in life.”
A keen sportswoman and church-goer, Tanisha says the family will always be her main focus.
“I want my kids to get everything they can from this life, and I just hope that through our role-modelling, my husband and I can lead them in the right direction. They certainly don’t complain about their own homework when they see me study!”