Teachers in tune with Turia's call

By AUDREY YOUNG and NZPA

Primary school teachers want the Government to hand responsibility for Maori education to iwi education authorities.

And they want all teachers to be taught Maori language competency so that all children can learn Maori to a basic level.

The call from the NZ Educational Institute conference in Wellington came as Associate Education Minister Tariana Turia questioned why Maori should continue with an education system that had failed them.

Ms Turia said the education system had historically been dominated by a non-Maori world view, which had helped undermine the language and belief systems of Maori.

"Why we continue to expect that Maori should continue with a system which has failed them is beyond me," Ms Turia said in a speech to a separate tertiary teachers conference.

The minister questioned the conference theme of "reaching new heights," and said the system had clipped Maori wings, severely limiting their ability to "fly to the top of the forest canopy" and reach those heights.

In 1997, just 35 per cent of all Maori school leavers went directly into tertiary education compared with 51 per cent of non-Maori.

Ms Turia said Maori continued to be educated in the mainstream education system. Those institutions needed to think long and hard, therefore, about how they were meeting their Maori students' needs.

Issues that should be examined included how to ensure that Maori students stayed and how institutions related to their Maori community.

"I think that perhaps this is too often put into the too-hard basket and we are left with many tertiary institutions which only give lip service to their treaty obligations."

The annual conference of the NZEI, the primary school teachers' union, voted unanimously yesterday to endorse the report of a working group setting out a new structure to oversee Maori education and another report on compulsory Maori.

The NZEI proposal would see 15 iwi authorities feeding into a national authority, Manatu Matauranga Maori, with overall responsibility for Maori education not only in kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Maori language schools but general schools as well.

And the NZEI would like Maori language to be a compulsory subject as maths and reading are, says its Maori executive officer and spokeswoman, Laures Park, "and as a consequence funded appropriately, so it is not a hobby any more."

The Maori language report states: "Te reo Maori for all would mean that we teach all children te reo Maori to a basic level to create a generation more at ease with and aware of each other.

"This increase in te reo Maori would not be to the detriment of the English language but will enable all children to become bilingual."

The report on Maori education proposes that iwi authorities consist of representatives of groups such as schools, boards of trustees, early childhood centres, marae and hapu, with three paid staff.

They would be financed by the Government but act independently. They would develop and monitor Maori teaching, support for teachers and participation by parents.



Earlier, Education Minister Trevor Mallard received a hero's welcome at the conference. He was presented with gifts of appreciation from early childhood teachers for returning them to the auspices of the state sector.

Mr Mallard also received a rapturous response to an announcement that early childhood teaching scholarships, each worth $10,000, would be extended to 100 Maori and Pacific Islanders a year.

It was a move that would help close the gaps in early childhood participation rates between Maori and Pacific Island children and Pakeha.





About 99 per cent of Pakeha 4-year-olds had some form of early childhood education compared with 60 to 65 per cent of Maori and Pacific Island 4-year-olds, Mr Mallard said.

"Everyone knows that if kids have a quality early childhood experience they are much more likely to do better at school, they are much more likely to stay at school, they are much more likely to go into tertiary education and they are much more likely to work after that tertiary education."