More Maoris at universities

Press, 22 October 1980, Page 14

More Maoris at universities

Parliamentary reporter The number of Maori students at universities has trebled in the last nine years, and pass rates have improved dramatically, an Auckland University lecturer, Dr P. W. Hohepa, says in a background paper presented to the national two-day conference of the Maori Affairs Planning Council in Wellington. School Certificate, Sixth-Form Certificate, and University Entrance Maori pass rates had also improved, but student numbers were still low. Of all Maori pupils in 1978, 16.4 per cent passed School Certificate, 9.6 per cent passed Sixth-Form Certificate, and 4.4 per cent, University Entrance. In the last eight years University Entrance and Sixt h-Form Certificate pass rates had doubled. Dr Hohepa presented to the conference a plan to treble Maori university student numbers in four years, reduce failure rates among first-year students, motivate School Certificate students to continue through to higher levels, and to acquaint them with University Education requirements, and bursary and scholarship students with university.

In another background paper, Mrs K. Mataira presented a plan to train some of New Zealand s 70,00.0 Maori-speaking people to' teach Maori- in community courses.;. I In spite of the efforts of •dedicated advoates of Maori language teaching in schools', this was not enough to - preserve ,the Maori language, Mrs Mataira said.

The people pressing for

Maori language classes were mainly victims of past educational policies which forbade the speaking of Maori in schools. Her plan entailed selecting three or four key persons in different regions, and training them to teach Maori at a series of special courses. T hese tutors would then set up classes, and return periodically for retraining. They . would also seek prospective tutors in their own regions. •