Source: Eastern Institute of Technology
11 minutes ago
Noel Faletutulu with her husband and six children, at the Margaret Hetley Scholarship ceremony.
Bachelor of Accounting student Noel Faletutulu began her learning journey at EIT in 2009, fresh out of Sacred Heart High School in Napier, enrolling in the very first year of EIT’s Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood Education). After a year of study, though, Noel found she wasn’t in the right headspace to keep going. She stepped away to focus on the working world, later marrying her husband and having four boys -Judah, Joel, Joash and Hosea.
In 2020, after lockdown and ten years working in admin, she signed up for the New Zealand Diploma in Business, focusing on the accounting strand. Three-quarters of the way through the course, she fell pregnant with her second-youngest, son Ailaulau-Jesse (AJ). With only two papers to go, and suffering from terrible nausea, she made the difficult decision to step away from her study again and focus on her family, welcoming her youngest, daughter Amirah-Rose, a year after AJ.
At the beginning of 2025, Noel decided it was time to come back and finish what she’d started. Once she was back in it, though, the diploma no longer felt like enough — she wanted a degree. Business seemed the obvious choice, given her whole working life had been in that world, but it was her husband who nudged her towards accounting, telling her it would be a challenge.
Noel could also see a real need in her community. “There was always a strong need to help our small Pacific business owners with financial management due to a gap in practical accounting knowledge like budgeting, tax compliance, and proper bookkeeping. I knew this was an area where I could make a real difference for my community.”
She started level two in July 2025 and followed it with three summer papers, so there was no family relaxing over Christmas that year – Noel had two assignments due on Christmas Day. She got through it.
“My whole life, I’ve always struggled with finishing what I started, giving up when things got hard. It was easier that way than actually asking for help,” she says. “Then I thought, no, I’ve got to finish. This is for my kids, and for me and my family.” – Noel Feletutulu, EIT student
That tenacity is exactly what the Margaret Hetley Scholarship was created to recognise, though Noel almost didn’t let herself hope. “I couldn’t believe it. I had applied for so many scholarships, so I didn’t think much of it when I saw the letter arrive. I was expecting to open it up and see ‘we regret to inform you’, but all I saw was ‘congratulations’, and I was like, what!”
“I researched Margaret Hetley, and who she was, and I was so honoured to be the recipient of a scholarship named after her.”
Executive Director of Operations, Glen Harkness, was thrilled to see the award go to such a high-achieving and deserving recipient.
EIT Liaison Officer Analeah Taufale (left), EIT ākonga Noel Feletutulu, Executive Director of Operations, Glen Harkness.
“This scholarship honours the memory of Margaret Hetley, who gifted the EIT Hawke’s Bay campus to the community, and was established to assist women to undertake tertiary study. It’s wonderful to present it to Noel, who has not only shown incredible tenacity, pursuing her studies over a significant amount of time and working around her busy family life, but who also has such a deep commitment to supporting her local community.”
So, what’s next for this super mum? “My degree finishes in November, then I want to do a teaching qualification -specifically Primary school teaching because all my kids will be in the primary age bracket when I finish my qualification.”
“As I’ve had to cut down my work hours, the scholarship has taken away a lot of the financial stress. It allowed me to pay for the rest of my papers and pursue further studies.” – – Noel Feletutu, EIT student
For Noel, it’s a full-circle moment. “I was going back through my old yearbook the other day, from my last year of high school (2008), and under ‘my dream career’ I had written ECE teaching or primary school teaching. And I thought, oh my gosh, this will be a twenty-year journey if I complete my teaching qualification and graduate in 2028.”
A huge congratulations to Noel and her whānau, who have supported her every step of her learning journey and were at the ceremony to celebrate her receiving her scholarship award.
Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/09/01/mother-of-six-completes-20-year-learning-journey-thanks-to-margaret-hetley-scholarship/