If computing education is going to positively contribute to the future of New Zealand, it needs to come to terms with its responsibility in decolonisation.
But there are poorly understood tensions between computing as a coloniser and computing as an enabler of change - and the same could be said for education. While there has been some discussion in international indigenous literatures, there has been little written in an Aoteroa context.
In this paper we consider the first role of computing as a colonising and decolonising force, and then add computing education to this framework. We use a fictional ethnography, telling stories of The Boy - a fictionalised rangatahi from a rural Bay of Plenty community. His challenges and opportunities, along with the failings of the system, bring light to questions of the role of computing education in making or breaking his future.
This research will provide the impetus for change for computing educators to make a conscious choice in design of education and in dealings with young people and their futures such that computing education is a positive force in decolonisation.
Mawera Karetai (with Samuel Mann)
Samuel Mann is a New Zealand computer scientist, with interests in computer science education and sustainability. He is a full Professor at Otago Polytechnic. He has published widely on sustainable practice, both in computing and more generally to apply to any discipline. Mann was educated at the University of Otago where he studied botany and geography, before completing a PhD in Information Science.