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The head of a Feilding Maori boys' school continuing to buck woeful Maori educational trends says parents must take greater responsibility for lifting children's performance in the classroom.
Hato Paora principal Tihirau Shepherd said parents must play a greater role in developing an environment that encourages Maori children
to educational success.
"It is about Maori making the effort, learning that the main priority is providing quality opportunity for the education of their children."
His comments follow the release of Ministry of Education figures showing that more than half of Maori male students are leaving school without even level one of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
This compares to 20 per cent for non-Maori students.
But Hato Paora, with 230 students, has a strong success rate. Every student who left last year had at least one NCEA level.
The report has sparked a wave of criticism targeting the Government.
Education Minister Steve Maharey hit back last night, saying improvement had been steady over the past 10 years.
But Waikato University Professor Russell Bishop, who is heading research into improving Maori educational performance, said the Government continued to fail Maori.
"These issues have been known for a number of years," he said.
"The question is, why have they not been addressed?"
Greater student teacher interaction and the nurturing and expectations of success were among measures that benefited not just Maori but all students in their classrooms.
Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples said the poor statistics were the result of economic deprivation and cultural isolation. He wanted greater emphasis on Maori immersion, or kura kaupapa schools.
"These problems have existed for almost 50 years and still there has been no improvement.
"Maori have a solution, but the Government persists with the old deficiency model."
Kura kaupapa schools continued to produce better academic results for Maori despite inadequate government funding and failure to attract and train more Maori-speaking teachers.
But Mr Shepherd said that although cultural pride and use of te reo was important, it should not come at the expense of a broader education.
And although poverty was a hindrance for many of his students, it did not stop them achieving.
He said hard work and an expectation of success, coupled with mentoring and strong student-teacher interaction, boosted performance.
But he criticised the Government's unwillingness to fund initiatives to help schools cope with the psychological and social problems Maori children from troubled backgrounds brought to the classroom.
Mr Maharey said ministry figures showed the number of Maori leaving school with little or no formal attainment was down from 40 per cent in 1996 to 25 per cent in 2005.
But he admitted the figures from last year highlighted a serious issue.
It could be partly explained by more Maori now working, fewer unemployed and fewer being outside the labour force, Mr Maharey said.
"But we are wanting more Maori to stay at school longer and gain higher qualifications, so there is more work to be done."
