Welsh visitor favours a bilingual N.Z.

Press, 13 February 1979, Page 22

Welsh visitor favours a bilingual N.Z.

By NANCY CAWLEY Although a visiting Welsh educationist advocates the establishment of bilingual education in New Zealand, from primary to tertiary level, and cites Wales as a country where it has succeeded, it does not appear to be a practical proposition for either country. In a seminar address, Professor Carl Dodson, who is touring New Zealand as the guest of the Council for Educational Research, told Auckland; schoolteachers that the move towards bilingual education in Wales stemmed from “a need for self-identity and selfrespect.”

He felt that several bilingual schools in New Zealand would be beneficial, and that students should have the option of sitting their examinations in either Maori or English. “If only 300 non-Maori parents wanted their children to learn Maori,” said Professor Dodson, “you would have a. school.” Bilingual education has been a reality in Wales for 30 years, according to Professor Dodson, but statistics do not support his picture of an enthus i a s t i c Welsh-speaking population. The 1978 Whitaker’s Almanack gives the following figures :-

In 1971, 20.8 per cent of the population of 2,723,596 spoke Welsh, compared with 28.9 per cent in 1951, and 1 per cent of the population spoke only Welsh, compared with 4 per cent in 1931. New Zealanders who have lived and travelled in Wales, see the move to adopt the Welsh language on a wider front as the work of a fanatical minority. In spite of the small number of people actually speaking the language, such things as driving-li-cences and road signs are in both languages. Students recently demonstrated in support of more Welsh-speaking television programmes, but the man-in-the-street is reported to be well content to speak, and listen to. the Queen’s English.

Unlike Wales, New Zealand is seeing an increasing interest in its native language. Maori is now included in the language departments of several universities; an illustrated ; Maori dictionary was pub- ! lished by the Oxford University Press last year; I and a bilingual school recently was established ' in Hawke’s Bay by the department of Education with another planned for the East Coast of the North Island. The academic level of Maori students is also rising. The 1978 New Zea-

land Yearbook notes that.: “About one in eight secondary pupils in the North Island is now Maori. There is steady improvement in the number of Maori pupils passing the School Certificate Examination and progressing to Forms 6 and 7.”

In spite of this, Mr Bill Nepia, head of the Maori department at the University of Canterbury, cannot envisage widespread bilingual education in New Zealand. “It is debatable whether the impetus of the current interest in Maori can be sustained.” he says. "It is here to stay in universities, but we have reasons for study that do not apply ‘out there’.” “Two of the factors necessary for such a programme would be a truly bilingual community to support it, and adequate teachers. There is a real shortage of competent, trained teachers in Maori in most educational institutions, including universities.” "We must remember,” says Mr Nepia, “that as

everyday communication, Maori is a dying language. Its use is tied to age. Older Maoris speak more of their native tongue than the younger folk, who have adopted contaminating city ways.” Urbanisation, he says, could be most to blame for the lapse of the Maori language. The young generation quickly take up city living, and with it, the city language. However, Mr Nepia, applauds the present interest, in and awareness of the Maori language. He sees it as a valuable aid to the understanding of his people’s culture.

Professor Dodson may be heartened by Aiun Llewellyn’s words in “The Shell Guide to Wales” (1969): “The defenders of the language can take some comfort from the fact that Welsh has been given up for lost at many stages in the recent history of Wales. It has refused to obey the predictions of the philologists and tactfully die out.” Let us hope the Maori language will show the same strength.