MAORI EDUCATION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20635, 15 August 1941, Page 4

MAORI EDUCATION

PROBLEM IN GISBORNE “TACKLED IN RIGHT WAY” A statement that Maori education and the finding of positions for Maoris were being tackled in the right way in Gisborne and on the East Coast was made by Mr. G. W. C. Drake, vocational guidance officer to the Government Youth Centre, Auckland, at a meeting in Gisborne last night. The meeting was attended by members of the teaching staff's of local schools, medical authorities, and a number of interested citizens. The question of what could be done and what was being done about the “drifter” and the Maori in the country was raised by Mr. C. J. Cox, and in answer Mr. Drake said that the native schools on the East Coast were going the right way about finding a solution to the question. At present there were at , least three native schools on the Coast that had secondary departments attached to them, and at any of these a boy could learn a trade. If this scheme was followed up and handled by competent people, he thought that in the next five or 10 years at the most there would be no question of a boy leaving school in Std. 4 and taking the first position that offered. He added that at any school there was little discrimination between the Maori and the European, and if the boy had the determination to learn he would usually teach himself something useful. Everyone had certain ability in some subject and this should be developed. Mr. O. G. Thornton stated that he had had experience with young native labour in the building of Maori settlement houses, and he had found that the young men learnt a trade very quickly and were only too eager to improve their position.