Government defends compulsory Maori basics programme
A proposed Maori basics programme to be launched this year will not make te reo compulsory for teachers, Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said.
Tataiako, a school-based cultural competency programme, is expected to be formally launched this year.
Dr Sharples mentioned the programme yesterday after receiving a Maori Youth Council report that recommended introducing compulsory te reo tertiary study for secondary school teachers to improve their ability to communicate effectively with Maori students.
He said the programme would do away with Te Kotahitanga, a current professional development programme to help teachers relate to Maori students.
"It's a way of training teachers, and involving them in the community, and teaching the Maori concept of teaching and learning."
However, the minister was forced to defend the planned programme today after education groups criticised the idea of compulsory te reo lessons for teachers.
Secondary Principals' Association president Patrick Walsh said not all teachers would want to learn Maori, and that there were already a number of course requirements for teachers, including for technology, to counter bullying and for NCEA and National Standards.
The primary teachers union, New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), was supportive, but questioned where extra funding for the project would come from.
NZEI president Ian Leckie said it was good to see te reo competency being recognised as a core part of a teacher's role.
"What teachers and schools will need, however, is solid resourcing and ongoing professional development. It's important that any training in te reo and tikanga Maori is backed up by regular opportunities for teachers to enhance their knowledge and skills in the classroom."
In a statement this afternoon, Dr Sharples said the programme would be phased in with a view to mandating the competencies in future, but that they would not be a requirement from the outset.
"It is not correct to say that Tataiako will make Maori language compulsory for all teachers," he said.
"However, I think one outcome of Tataiako is likely to be more use of te reo Maori in schools, as it is on National Radio, for example, in Parliament, and in many other aspects of New Zealand life."
Dr Sharples said instead of ongoing in-service training, Tataiako would aim to give basic teacher training that equipped all teachers to teach Maori learners effectively.
"Tataiako simply makes explicit for Maori what all learners and their families would expect from professionally trained teachers."
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Comments and questions12
If you make a minority language compulsory in this way,instead of engendering support for the language, the result will be the opposite - resistance and negative attitudes. Sometimes, I think we have a government of absolute idiots with no knowledge of the wider world and what has happened elsewhere.
I was thinking of doing a diploma in education next year but if I have to waste my time learning something that is totally irrelevant I'll seriously reconsider. Trainee teachers get the treaty of Waitangi rammed down their throats enough as it is. Unless the teacher's subject is maori it is totally irrelevant and a waste of time & money. What will it achieve? Nothing. Maori will still at the bottom of the heap because their attitudes remain the same. They'll still beat their children to death, fail school, go to jail, go on a benefit, live in poverty - but their teachers will speak basic maori, even if the students themselves can't. The real issue is why the govt forces them to go to the crappiest schools because they live in low decile areas.
http://www.rogerdouglas.org.nz/?page_id=901
We all love the Haka ..... whats wrong with embracing a little more Maori rather than assisting the John Hadfield's of this world
The element of compulsion is what's wong. Even Labour wasn't foolish enough to do that.
many of our teachers struggle with literacy and numeracy let alone Maori.
Maori Youth Council should learn from some SE ASIAN countries, where local languages made compulsory had actually failed. Most local graduates had problem understanding most communications predominantly in English, written or verbal..
Its actually very similar to how hitler altered Germany's education system.
I would have thought that by now the pointy headed liberals who come up with the sort of nonsense now being proposed would have been clearly identified as the loonies that hey are ..
Surely we need to focus the limited resources of our education system on the things that will actually provide a genuine benefit to our society rather than frittering them away on the BS of a tiny majority of trouble makers ..?
Tokenism at it's compulsory best.
Based, simply on your use of English it appears you struggle with language period. Tātaiako does not make Te Reo compulsory for Teachers, as clearly stated.
I am studying the Dip. Primary teaching and am enjoying learning about Māori students and how to help them achieve. I am a non-Māori and am trying to learn a few words in basic te reo. The statistics are there - all proving how Māori learners have been at a disadvantage way back to the early schools and the attitude of the settlers.To have a classroom that is culturally relevant and using pedagogy that incorporates teaching strategies such as collaborative learning, also encouraging a home-school relationship that is particularly helpful to Māori learners would also benefit non-Māori. I encourage you to still go for the diploma, and realize that your views will be updated.
In the New Zealand issue of the news for the 12th of this month (November 2011) I was reading on page A18 about the graces and tenents of the Arabian 'Sharia Law'.Though not a related premise to any constabulatory in Aotearoa the mere fact that the 'Sharia Law' indentured 1/3rd of page A18 has little to no fixture upon
Māori and what is a true national treasure. Te reo Māori is a cultured indigenous living propensity of these Islands in the Pacific Ocean. I admonish that our national treasure Te reo Māori be afforded the same and equal representation in the NZ Hearald. As a 2nd language learner of Te Reo Māori (2nd generation Māori from the US) I am just flawed at the beautiful resonance of Te Reo Māori, astounded at the personal drive I host for Te Reo and the fact that US Māori are jealous because of this profane object of identity I have mastered, mistakes and all. That's the inner beauty of Māori that speak fluent Reo as apposed to my rendition and quietly acknowledge that specimens (funny Māori like me) are 'knocking at the door all day, every day' for increase and proficiency in Te reo Māori. Sir, lend this declaration to the wide expanse of New Zealand that this Sould bares truth to that which it tapu 'sacred.'
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