Education providers have been putting on extra classes to keep up with the demand for opportunities to learn te reo Māori.
But while te reo education is at an “exciting phase”, educators say the journey is not over yet.
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology associate dean Heddell Raerino said for people involved in teaching and guiding students, the te reo journey went beyond Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.
“The importance of te reo is paramount every day. We prefer to focus on every week being te reo Māori week,” Raerino said.
“The goal is to get past the need to have a ‘one week’ focus on te reo but every week be te reo week, to have te reo Māori embedded in everyday language.”
Raerino said te reo Māori education was in an “exciting phase”.
“Over the last five years or so the huge growth in people committing to their te reo Māori journey has been remarkable when considering how grave things were 50 years ago,” Raerino said.
Raerino said the demand for opportunities to learn te reo was “amazing”.
“There is certainly a craving to learn te reo Māori,” Raerino said.
Raerino said Toi Ohomai and Te Pūkenga often had to put on extra classes to keep up with the demand.
It was also “fantastic” to see how students had progressed.
“Te reo is becoming normalised,” Raerino said.
“Those students who began their te reo journey a couple of years ago have two to three years’ worth of learning behind them. They’re reaching a level of fluency that allows them to explore aspects of te reo Māori and te ao Māori.
“We see students using te reo in their daily lives, in their work and in their businesses.”
Raerino said the uptake of te reo from all sectors of society spurred advanced speakers to keep striving for excellence in their knowledge and use of the language.
“Besides the obvious of stimulating and challenging the mind, te reo Māori helps create an understanding of te ao Māori which adds to one’s identity, whether as tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti. It strengthens Aotearoa as a Pacific nation which only bodes well for the future.”
University of Waikato Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies associate professor Sophie Nock (Ngāti Kurī) said one significant change she had observed in te reo education over the past 20 years was the increase of interest in te reo from non-Māori.
“There seems to be a lot more understanding of why the language is an integral part of Māoridom.”
Nock said she noticed non-Māori students enrolled at Waikato University’s Te Tohu Paetahi total immersion language programme were referring to themselves as “tangata Tiriti”.
“They call themselves partners of the Treaty [of Waitangi] when they introduce themselves.”
Nock said the programme was seeing a lot of mature age and professional students.
“They have been out in the workforce and they have come back to learn te reo for a number of reasons,” Nock said.
Nock said Te Tohu Paetahi, which is available at the university’s campuses in Hamilton and Tauranga, was about promoting bilingualism, reducing language and cultural barriers and adding to the pool of fluent te reo speakers.
“[The programme] started in 1991. So it’s been around for 30-plus years. It’s still going which means that people still want it.”
But Nock said the work of te reo educators in the programme and across New Zealand was not over.
“New Zealand is so monolingual,” Nock said.
“We’re not out of the woods. I think the language is still in dire straights. If I was talking to my mother my mother would say that the spirit of the language is not as strong as what it used to be. There’s still a lot to make up for.”
Nock said it was encouraging to see many teachers taking part in the Te Tohu Paetahi programme and to meet young educators dedicated to making sure te reo “is still around for the generations that aren’t here yet”.