School trustees

Press, 16 May 1989, Page 20

School trustees

Sir, —I am appalled at Mr Ken Mair’s statement on the front page of Saturday’s “Press” that “there should be two Maori people as of right on all boards of trustees.” Such a statement suggests blatant apartheid. Views like this are, I feel, responsible for the increasing racial division in New Zealand today. They are not something we should perpetuate in “Tomorrow’s Schools.” The people we need for our boards of trustees are those who will ensure that schools produce well-educated, thoughtful, caring human beings. Whether they are pakeha or Maori, Samoan or Indian, should be of very secondary importance.—Yours, etc.,

G. COLLINS. May 13, 1989.

Sir, —I am concerned by the claim made by both Mr Gerald Maister and Mrs Marlene Wilson (May 13), that the co-option of ethnic minorities on to school boards of trustees is not democratic. They evidently feel that democracy must entail the cultural tyranny of the majority. Surely a multi-cultural approach to education will better meet the needs of all involved and produce a broader, more varied and interesting curriculum. This

country has an unhappy future if the majority (Europeans) is not prepared to share power with minorities. If moral arguments for this view are not convincing, then the argument from enlightened self-interest certainly must be. The “we are all New Zealanders” argument overlooks the fact that minority cultures are felt by their members to be just as valid as the majority culture and that if Maori culture, in particular, does not survive in New Zealand then it will not survive at all.—Yours, etc., JOHN LIVESEY. May 13, 1989.