Institute honours Maori woman

Tu Tangata, Issue 14, 1 October 1983, Page 21

Institute honours Maori woman

In May this year Kura Marie Taylor became the first Maori woman teacher to be made Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Of the 68 Fellow NZEI Awards, only three are held by women. The basic criterion for the award is meritorious and outstanding service to the profession, with the emphasis on service to children and not efficiency as it is sometimes seen, nor on attainment of high office. The Institute’s citation for awards read:...‘‘The awards of Honorary Fellow, Fellow and Associate are made by the Institute on the recommendation of the Professional Committee, which is composed of the National President, six Fellows, and representatives of the Hon. Minister of Education, the principals of teachers’ colleges, the New Zealand Post-Primary Teachers’ Association and the New Zealand Association of University Teachers. The Institute, in making these awards, gives official recognition to those who have demonstrated outstanding competence in their professional practice or have rendered signal service to education”.... In conferring the award, the Na-

tional President of the NZEI, Mr J G P Brown FNZEI, on behalf of the Institute’s 18,500 members read from Kura’s citation as follows:KURA MARIE TAYLOR (TEIRA) SENIOR TEACHER OF JUNIOR CLASSES, CORNWALL PARK SCHOOL. “An innovator in establishing meaningful contact with parents, the most loyal of colleagues you, Marie, have made a significant contribution to education in its widest sense. A model for all, you teach by precept and example. Within the Institute you have accepted many onerous roles and carried them through with distinction, having held most positions of responsibility in one of the organisation’s largest branches. Your educative role in the Maori Women’s Welfare League is outstanding. You are an anticipator and a planner for change, using your dynamic personality, steadfast integrity and bubbling humour to carry others with you. Those qualities were recognised on the world scene when you were elected chairperson of the Consultation of Specialists on Education for Peace and Respect for Human Rights held in Switzerland in

1981. At home you have made significant contributuions to equality of the sexes by your participation in seminars and your chairing of the Institute’s own Equality Committee. Your outstanding work with the production of Te Tatai Hono is acknowledged. It is my privilege to confer on you the Award of Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Institute.” In her reply, Kura made reference to the past one hundred years of the N.Z.E.I. ‘‘The Institute has borne, with dignity and reason, the trust bequeathed by successive generations of teachers who have each had a total belief and sincerity in the tasks they have undertaken. It is upon such example that the Institute rock stands firm. To quote Sir Maui Pomare of Te Atiawa. ‘‘Deeds will live, and will in future be a guiding star”.... Ka tu tonu! Ake ake! Nga mahi tika. It is recognition of worth by one’s peers, one’s own professional peers, that is the most valued and heartwarming of all recognition; for it is they who are the most demanding in terms of expectations and performance.”

PETER TAPSELL became MP for Eastern Maori in the last General Election. Already a well known figure in Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty and widely known in the Maori world he has rapidly achieved a high profile in national politics certainly higher than most first-term Members of Parliament. He was quickly recognised by the media as a person of independent and vigorous opinion which he is willing and able to articulate. As a result he has little difficulty in gaining a wide coverage for his views. Although regarded on many issues as a conservative he early demonstrated a capacity to cut across all shades of Maori political opinion with his crusade to modify the procedures for the release of deceased persons to their families for tangi. The frustration of his Private Members Bill