Having completed a Bachelor of Arts (Māori) and a Bachelor of Arts Honours (Māori) after just two years at EIT, Turei Ormsby is confidently launching into doctorate degree studies.

Turei’s aim is to be one of the youngest, if not the youngest, to gain a doctorate in Māori studies and the 21-year-old’s academic ambitions don’t stop there. 

“It’s highly possible and probably likely I will be the youngest Māori professor,” he adds.  “That’s my ultimate goal.”

Of Ngāti Kahungunu descent on his father’s side and Ngāti Porou on his mother’s, Turei grew up in Christchurch.  His mother, Reremoana Ormsby, enrolled him in a total immersion school when he was about eight. 

“The kura kaupapa was pretty much where I found my passion to speak Māori,” he says.  “My mother encouraged me as best she could.  She too has studied Māori and that’s how we communicate.  She understands the importance of speaking Māori and that it is essential to Māori identity.”

When he was 15, Turei moved with his family to Lower Hutt, and in his two years at Hutt Valley High School he was New Zealand’s top scholar in te reo Māori and te reo rangatira.  For his final year at school, however, he returned to the kura kaupapa in Christchurch.

“They are so family orientated,” he says of total immersion schools, “that you start missing them.”

After a gap year, he started bicultural journalism studies but found the course wasn’t what he had envisaged.

 “There wasn’t a lot of te reo Māori content, but,” as he says of a tertiary qualification, “you do need a ticket.”

The move to EIT was prompted by his previous association with two senior lecturers at Te Ūranga Waka, Materoa Haenga and Hiria Tumoana.

“I knew that one day I would come to these women and learn what I could from them.”

Materoa’s significant contribution to te reo learning was celebrated at the inaugural Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated Māori Language Awards in 2013.  The honoured kuia died early last year.   

For Turei, living in Hawke’s Bay was also a chance to reconnect with his Ngāti Kahungunu roots.

“I have deep whakapapa here,” he says.  “My father and grandmother are from Waipatu marae.    I’m definitely proud to be Kahungunu.”

Starting at EIT in 2014, he was credited with two years of the bachelor’s degree because of his prior knowledge of te reo Māori. At the end of his first year, Materoa told him he had come to Te Ūranga Waka for three years of study and she was asking him for just one more – to complete the honours degree.

Turei recently learnt he had passed that with first class honours. 

“The honours programme at Te Ūranga Waka is awesome,” he enthuses.  “I would definitely recommend study to everyone in Kahungunu.  Māoridom needs to be represented a lot more in the academic community.  We need many more Māori academics, and not just in the field of Māori studies, in any field they feel passionate about.

“A lot of Māori don’t believe in themselves.  They are conditioned to think they are not smart enough to achieve higher education and they can.”

While Turei has still to finalise his topic for the PhD – which he will study through Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi – one option is to trace Māori migrations throughout Polynesia by exploring commonalities of language.

“I want to find Hawaiki,” he says of his interest in locating Māoridom’s traditional homeland.