RODNEY HIDE: Two standards of citizenship
Otago University has published its 2026 medical school admissions figures. They make for uncomfortable reading.
This year Otago admitted 347 students to medicine. At least 72 came in through the Māori pathway. 167 came in through the General pathway, the one most New Zealanders must use.
Of the students who applied through the General pathway after first-year health science, 29% got in: 110 of 379. Of those who applied through the Māori pathway, 82% did: 59 of 72.
The marks tell the same story. The lowest General-pathway student offered a place averaged 93 per cent. On the Māori pathway, offers went as low as 65 per cent. That's a gap of nearly 28 points.
For graduates the gap is complete. Every General-pathway graduate offered a place had a higher grade average than every Māori-pathway graduate offered one. The ranges don't even overlap.
Do they graduate at the same rate? Nobody publishes it regularly. Otago released one cohort under the Official Information Act: of the students who started second-year medicine in 2019, all 42 on the Māori pathway and all 97 on the General pathway finished on time. When asked for drop-out rates by pathway over several years, Otago withheld them. At Auckland, the only published study, of students admitted from 2002 to 2009, found 80% of those on the Māori and Pacific scheme graduated, against 95% on the General pathway.
So students admitted on 65 per cent can finish the degree, pass the same finals and become doctors. That tells us something. The 93 per cent bar is not a measure of who will make a good doctor. It's rationing. Otago has far more able applicants than places, so it ranks them on first-year marks because marks are easy to rank. Being able to score 93 rather than 85 in a first-year chemistry paper may bear no resemblance to being good at doctoring.
That makes the ancestry rule harder to defend, not easier. If marks are the right test, it's wrong to wave some students through on 65. If marks are a poor test, it's wrong to turn away a General student on 92 who would make a fine doctor. Either way, two young New Zealanders from the same school get very different chances because of who their great-grandparents were.
This is two standards of citizenship, decided by ancestry.
The defence is that it produces more Māori doctors to serve Māori patients. The honest answer is to fix the test, not the race of the people who sit it. Choose students on what makes a good doctor: judgement, character, how they deal with people, and the will to work in the places that need doctors. Then apply that test to everyone.
Citizenship should mean one standard for everyone. Our medical schools have two.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader
This aren't two standards of citizenship, decided by ancestry. There are 5 admission pathways besides the General admission: Māori, Indigenous Pacific, Socio – economic Equity, Refugee, and Rural. There is also an International admissions scheme.
Why Rodney focuses on a single one to the exclusion of the others makes me wonder his motives
So take the matter to the UN human rights people. I'm sure they'd denounce the racial discrimination being practised in NZ.
Ha ha, like hell they would as they're the woke pricks that lumbered us with the revolutionary he puapua agenda.
Whoops, almost forgot, it was that tricky little traitor john Key who got that stinking ball rolling.
So how do we change it? the inequity has been perpetuated for over 20 years but despite protests it continues. The other issue just as important Dr tyraining issue is that 70% of doctors that came from the General Ststream and many from the Maori path leave NZ to work overseas within 2 years of graduation, looking for better working conditions, facilities and pay, What NZ needs is a health envoronment where the Drs (and dentists too) that we train at great cost to taxpayers remain in NZ. By building a 3rd medical school the National Party just increased the number of trained Drs we export. The money sopent on the 3rd medical school would have been far better…
Our doctor is Maori, youngish woman, excellent.
Her cousin, Maori, is a well known orthapedic surgeon, and great guy.
They don't need special treatment, or having the associated implied scepticism about their competence.
This system is a disgrace imho.
The do gooders do more harm than good - unintended consequences yet again
I hear so much about trying to increase the mortality of mowree, looking at these figures is going to achieve that, yeah right. Im 80 near enough and in good health, conclusion, stick to UK and properly trained medics who rely on "science".