Language programme —• claim

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 8

Language programme —• claim

PA Wellington The language nursery (kohanga reo) programme is one of the fastest-growing political movements after the New Zealand Party, said an Auckland University lecturer, of Dr Rahginui Walker. In a speech to the PostPrimary Teachers’ Association Maori education conference, Dr Walker said the ostensible aim of the .programme was to teach Maori language to pre-schoolers. But one of the unforeseen side effects was that young mothers were becoming politically active as they grappled with the pakeha bureaucracy for their share of resources to ensure their children could continue to learn their language. Mothers were shopping around for schools with bilingual programmes and were prepared to keep children at the language nurseries for a further year if they could not find satisfactory schools. With falling rolls primary

schools woulH 1 soon, -beforced to go bilingual 'to attract language nursery children to maintain their grading and staffing levels, he said. Maoris were at “the cutting edge of social change” and it was time New Zealanders harnessed, • instead of suppressed, their potential for creative and innovative change. Dr Walker said the Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, had “emasculated” the core curriculum review, which favoured more Maori input This showed that the strategy of reform had failed. He said the news of the watering down of the review came only days after optimistic statements about development of Maori language and greater pakeha understanding of cultural things by the Director-Gen-eral of Education, Mr W. L. Renwick. Mr Wellington’s “unilateral” attion was an affirmation of pakeha cultural dom-

finance and inequality of power, .between Maori and pakeha values:Dr Walker said institutionalised racism caused the 75 per cent failure rate of Maori schoolchildren. The introduction of some “taha Maiori” {Maori dimension) over the last decade, though a welcoriie move, had not improved achievement levels. It had also been subverted by some teachers who claimed it “smacked of_.separatism.” Dr Walker.-said the only solution was' alternative schooling — a move endorsed by about 300 delegates at the Maori Educational Development Conference in Ngaruawahia in March. The plan to set up alternative schools modelled on language nursery (kohanga reo) principles would be discussed on maraes throughout New Zealand, he said. In this way Maori people would generate the political vHll to proceed. ’