Turoa Kiniwe Royal

Tu Tangata, Issue 6, 1 June 1982, Page 13

Turoa Kiniwe Royal

HE KUPU WHAKAMIHI/Profile

“I was booted all the way through school —that's what I call directive guidance."

In spite of his academic credentials, Turoa Kiniwe Royal, comes across best as a salesman with faith in his own commodity. There is no hard sell in his approach. Just a dogged perseverance to turn the cliche ‘a multicultural New Zealand’ into reality, with biculturalism the first step.

If it sounds familiar, that’s because the Race Relations Conciliator Hiwi Tauroa’s “Race Against Time”, says much the same. Mr Royal is ahead of the report, which among other things, wants the Government to establish bilingual schools by 1990. Wellington High, the school he heads as principal, is offering bilingual education already and without state

funds. Artfully dodging any personal credit, Mr Royal says the innovation is an example of a school meeting local needs within its own resources. No big deal really. Important enough though, for pupils from 20kms away to bypass their local schools, so they can take part. High’s experiment is being trialed at

huge odds, not the least of which is the fact that only two of the five teachers involved are fluent in Maori. Ahead, lie massive translation problems of subject content and the problem of keeping bilingualism alive in the face of 17 school certificate options at fifth-form level. Still, there is little to suggest that it won’t work. The man behind it gained a fairly impressive record when he first started to market Maoritanga 12 years ago. At the time, secretary of the reconstituted National Advisory Committee on Maori Education (NACME), Mr Royal was appointed education officer with the Education Department’s new Maori and Island directorate. The directorate was NACME’s idea and so installed in an administrative structure, partly of his own design, he

set r about implementing NACME reforms, aimed at reversing the failure rate of Maori pupils. In practice, it meant breaking with a teaching pattern which had advocated conformity to pakeha values for 100 years and replacing it with just the opposite. For the first time, cultural differences were to be officially recognised and Maori language introduced into the classroom. Ambitious longer term plans called for a representation of the Maori viewpoint in all curriculum subjects. It was a tall order. The first year, the directorate did the rounds, only 30 schools agreed to offer Maori language and 230 children sat SC Maori. When Mr Royal left in mid-1978, 143 secondary schools fielded 1500 SC Maori language candidates. And while the longer-term goals are still as far away now on a national front, Wellington High can at least claim to be trying to reflect the viewpoint in the 3DT instance.

Claimed by some to have the best credentials in the field of multicultural education, Mr Royal was the most likely contender for the High vacancy when it was advertised four years ago. Then, as now, his interest went beyond a better deal for Maori kids. In his directorate post, he was active in forging links across the Tasman, towards educational advances for Australian aborigines and acted as consultant (in multicultural education) for the Australian Commission of UNESCO. And when word reached him about his appointment at Wellington High, Mr Royal was in Suva, that time, as consultant for the British Commonwealth Secretariate on an educational administration course for principals in Pacific Island countries. In 1980, he was invited among other

experts in the field to share his knowledge on a two-month tour of India, as part of a Commonwealth Corporate Programme to aid educational administration. Mr Royal believes that much of the criticism directed at the Education Department for Maori pupils’ failure is misplaced. He says school should be more sensitive to the unequal opportunities within their grounds. Pupil attainment is built from a combination of “parental expectations, competent teachers and examples”. “Take my class, I was booted all the way through school,” he laughs. Dad left in standard 4 and wanted me to get School Certificate. There was no argument. He wore a size 10 gumboot and could pack quite a wollop. I got SC and then down came my uncle a padre from the Navy. He picked me up by the ear and told me I was going back to sit my University Entrance. So did Mum and Dad.

That’s what I call directive guidance. I went back this time to sit UE on the understanding I could stay on the farm afterwards.” Turoa fulfilled his part of the bargain and returned to help run the farm at Kaiaua, in the western Hauraki Gulf. Within a month, his parents saw that he was “safely ensconced” at Auckland University. He left there armed with a master of arts degree in geography and later obtained a master of educational administration degree from the University of New South Wales, Armidale. At present Wellington High would appear to have at least two of those allimportant ingredients to success parental expectations and competent teachers but what of pupil examples? Representing 24 ethnic groups, High has no Maoris in the seventh form this year. If bilingualism becomes the confidence booster it is hoped, this could be rectified soon. A lot is riding on 3DT.