EDUCATION POLICY DISCUSSIONS

Te Ao Hou, December 1955, Page 9

EDUCATION POLICY DISCUSSIONS A committee of eleven has been set up by the Minister of Education to discuss future policy in regard to Maori schools and special educational assistance to Maoris. The chairman and one of the members are from the education department; two members are from education boards while the rest of the committee is made up of five Maori representatives, elected in different parts of the country, a teacher from the Maori School service, a representative of the New Zealand Educational Institute, and two representatives of the Department of Maori Affairs. When Te Ao Hou inquired from the committee chairman, Mr. D. G. Ball, what the Education Department wished to put forward to the committee, the reply was that the time has come for a thorough examination of the facilities for educating Maori children. Of course, nobody can know what this examination will show, but great changes in Maori life have taken place since the present policy was thought out. It is essential to the examination which is now proceeding that the Maoris, through their five representatives, should take an active part in it. The first meting was on November 23 and 24.