Future looks good for Te Waipounamu College

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 16

Future looks good for Te Waipounamu College

By

LOIS TUREI

More than 300 women are expected to converge on Te Waipounamu Maori Girls’ College this week-end as 75 years of service by the school will be recalled and celebrated. The school is the only boarding school for Maori pupils ever established in the South Island.

Te Waipounamu College was founded on March 4,1909, Ohoka by an Anglican minister, the Rev. Charles Fraer, and opened with a roll of eight girls who came from as far away as Temuka and the Chatham Islands. The school building was the old vicarage at Ohoka and furnishings were made possible by gifts and financial .assistance from supporters of the school. Gifts also included a cow in calf, a load of firewood and some swans’ eggs. While higher education of Maori girls was the. school’s main priority, emphasis was placed on training them to be “good wives and mothers” for dairy farmers. On the school’s opening day Mr Fraer appealed for £2OO to fence the grounds and build a byre, so that the college could have a well equipped dairy. This emphasis on dairy training, which included milking and butter making was carried through until the 19405, when teaching and nursing were concentrated on. In 1910 the school began the year with four pupils but by the end of it the roll had grown to 14. The following year Miss Vivienne Opie became principal, a position which she held for 12 years. Miss Opie’s work has made an impression in the school’s history and her previous work at a small “native school” in the Pelorus Sounds was reflected in the success she achieved at Te Waipounamu. By 1913 the roll was up to 24 and extensions had to be made to the school building. Four years later the site proved unsuitable and £3OOO was raised from the land’s sale to buy the school’s present site in Ferry Road. It moved there two years after the purchase. From 1924 to 1940 the Anglican Sisterhood took over the staffing of the school and it was during these years that significant changes came about While Mr Fraer’s intention had been the provision of secondary education, some of the pupils were still only of primary school age. This trend continued until the mid 19305, when there was a strong recommendation by the

principal, Miss Hilda Harding, to the school’s governing council that only secondary pupils be accepted. By 1960 the school had proved a steady record of achievement both academically and in the community. The school’s records of 1937 show that one former pupil was teaching at Tauranga, two were at Teachers’ Training College, and one was a nurse at St Helen’s Hospital.

In 1948 the school had 41 pupils, and seniors were encouraged to take School Certificate with a view to entering nursing and teaching. Between 1945 and 1960 a 60 per cent School Certificate pass was reached, almost 10 per cent above the national average and 40 per cent above the average among Maori pupils in State schools. In 1957,12 of the 13 girls who sat the examination passed, and they all entered either the nursing or teaching professions. Another significant change came in 1962. With eight teachers retiring, the school no longer had the resources to teach sixth formers, and the girls did their studies at Linwood High School. Almost two years later it was decided, that Te Waipounamu would be retained as a “residential college” and all the girls would attend Avonside Girls’ High School. This school was chosen because at the time it was the only high school in Christchurch which taught the Maori language. While academic achievement was pursued, the importance of retaining their Maoritanga was, and still is, emphasised. A drop in the roll and a lack of money threatened the school with closing in 1970. At a public meeting in August to discuss the future of the college, the chairman of the board of governors and Dean of Christchurch at the time, the Very Rev. M. L. Underhill, said that unless

the names of at least 45 girls, and the necessary money were available within 20 days, the college would have to close at the end of the year. He said the school had been running at a loss for some years, but without enough students that loss had become too great. The plea sparked interest nationwide. Support was assured from the local Maori community and tribes and within the 20 days the roll was up and a grant had been made by the St John Trust, which adminsters the Anglican theological college in Auckland. At the same time, criticism about the amalgamation of the school with Avonside Girls’ High School had been made by Mr P. Baker, secretary of the South Island District Maori Council (now the Te Waipounamu District Council). He felt that the school’s pass rate had slumped and that it had been closed at a time when his people needed it most desperately. However, the school’s principal, Miss M. Stevenson, said that the move was one of the most progressive steps in Maori education in the last decade. The transfer to Avonside had given the girls access to the full range of courses available in a large, multi-course secondary school. Their success, as with the pakeha pupils, was largely determined by their willingness to learn and their readiness to make the best use of opportunities open to them, she said. She added that it was unrealistic and retrograde to suggest that the college should become a full-time institution again. This year 42 girls are on the school roll and the future looks stable. Gone are the days when education meant training them to be good wives and mothers. Today they are training to be good “ambassadors” for their school, their race, and their country. After a full school day at Avonside Girls’ they return to the hostel and settle into

a different type of routine. Their hostel activities include housework, study periods, Maori culture, and Maori crafts. The girls are also active in community and church affairs. All of these contribute to what the principal, Mrs Doe Parata, described as “confidence training.” Over the next three days the girls dill have a chance to meet some of the school’s former pupils, including one from the very first class, Miss Magda Walscott, now living in Dunedin. The week-end itinerary includes the traditional Founder’s Day ceremony tomorrow and a trip out to the school's original site at Ohoka on Sunday.