Education ‘critical issue’ in race relations

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 34

Education ‘critical issue’ in race relations

PA Wellington Education rather than the. Treaty of Waitangi is the critical issue affecting race relations, says the Opposition spokesman on Maori affairs, Mr Winston Peters Addressing a public meeting at. Hastings, Mr . Peters said education determined choices and opportunities for young people. Sadly, children of Maori parents underperformed because they

came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. "Researchers have clearly established that academic success both at school and tertiary level has more to do with your environment, your background than necessarily your IQ,” he said. “We cannot accept the current failure rates where one in five European students get an A grade in school certificate compared with one in 20 Maori students; where 19

per cent of our fourthformers are Maori but less than 3 per cent of our university graduates.” Education was th 6 key to economic prosperity and European society had to acknowledge that assistance must be immediate. “Those differences will so heat racial tension that major confrontation is inevitable if the process is not reversed,” he said.