The rebuild of the Te Pūkenga Hawke’s Bay Campus is progressing well.

The rebuild of the EIT | Te Pūkenga Hawke’s Bay Campus is progressing well, with a large percentage of (staff) kaimahi and (students) ākonga due to be welcomed back at the beginning of next year.

Cyclone Gabrielle caused extensive damage to the Taradale site in February with up to 90 per cent of the ground-floor buildings – more than 500 rooms – being damaged by flood water and contaminated silt.

While the Tairāwhiti Campus in Gisborne was fine, there was widespread damage to infrastructure and communities on the coast that continues to present challenges to delivery from Wairoa to Hicks Bay.

Many kaimahi at EIT | Te Pūkenga faced their own personal challenges as a result of the cyclone, yet still put in a lot of hard mahi to ensure continued delivery of programmes for ākonga.

Within two weeks of the cyclone, delivery had resumed, much of it online, to all but eight offerings. EIT kaimahi established a network of temporary locations across Napier and Hastings to support teaching activity and house key services. At its peak there were 45 temporary locations operating in what has been coined the EIT Te Pūkenga ‘extended campus’.

About 30 per cent of the Hawke’s Bay campus was able to be reopened for delivery to ākonga (learners) in time for the start of Semester 2 in July.

EIT | Te Pūkenga Executive Director Glen Harkness says they are currently continuing largely with delivery as planned.

“A lot of hard work has gone in to get us to this point and we are pleased that several of our programmes requiring specialist facilities have been back on campus since July.”

The specialist spaces that have reopened account for about 30 per cent of the campus. They include vet nursing, nursing, viticulture & wine science, some creative disciplines, plumbing, automotive and mechanical engineering.

“Fortunately, most of the buildings used for specialist programmes had limited damage and were easier to repair. It was also hard to find specialist facilities to accommodate these programmes in the community, so it was a priority to get them back on campus.”

While the campus is not fully reopened, EIT | Te Pūkenga believes it is important to get staff and students back.

“We are grateful to those facilities in the community that let us conduct our programmes there, but it is important to bring as many staff and students home to the campus as possible so that they can be close to our support services.”