Speaking te reo is "part and parcel" of being a New Zealander, a Northland high school principal says.
Ministry of Education figures show the number of secondary students taking te reo Maori are virtually unchanged from a decade ago.
Te reo enrolments peaked in 2008 at 26,339 students but slumped to 22,813 last year - a similar number to those learning French.
Tauraroa Area School principal Grant Burns said teachers and students were encouraged to use te reo every day at the school so the language was not a foreign concept.
"We believe that having some fluency and some ability to pronounce correctly is part and parcel of being a New Zealander."