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Over the last few decades, a significant number of Pacific Islands people have migrated to New Zealand, struggling to successfully retain their own culture and identity. Modern pacific migration has largely been driven by the desire to improve educational and employment opportunities. This short paper discusses some of the challenges of cultural adaptation for Pacific Islands people in New Zealand and the continued need for all groups in the community to embrace change. Increasingly those involved in education and training realise that if New Zealand is to be a high skill, high wage economy with people enjoying a quality lifestyle, different approaches to both skills development and skills recognition at the workplace need to be implemented. Workplace assessment is a key component of the changes taking place in relation to education and training with the development of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and the setting up of Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) under the Industry Training Act 1992. This paper discusses the new strategy and emphasises that the appeal of the Framework to Pacific Islands people is in the promise it offers that people will be able to gain recognition for the skills they have regardless of how or where they acquired those skills.