MAORI EDUCATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6241, 12 June 1946, Page 10

MAORI EDUCATION

POLICY CRITICISED OWN SCHOOLS ADVOCATED Disagrctment with the policy of the Education Department in opposing the establishment of separate native schools was expressed by Mr W. I. Bowyer (of Otorohanga) at a meeting of the Auckland Education Board when notification was received from the Department that the Minister of Education had acceded to the request of the Board to establish a native school at Pukekohe to cater for all Maori children in the district front the first primer to the sixth standard.

It was stated in the letter that it had always been contrary to the policy of the Department to establish native schools in close proximity to public schools, and it was desired that it should be understood clearly that the school at Pukekohe was not to be regarded as a precedent. If the Maori was to be asked to meet the pakeha on equal terms it was essential that progress be made with his education, said Mr Bowyer. His opinion was that Maori children "hould attend a school of their own in the early stages of their education. Where one Maori child would reach the same standard as pakeha children in a mixed school a dozen would reach that standard in a native school.

Mr Bowyer said the Education Department’s policy was a lot of rubbish, and where native schools had been set up they had proved most successful.