Remits from the education hui

Tu Tangata, Issue 18, 1 June 1984, Page 11

Remits from the education hui

School principals should be familiar with and sympathetic to taha maori, a maori education hui at Huntly’s Waahi marae decided in April.

That was the effect of one of the remits passed by the approximately 1000 people who attended the hui, called by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association.

They said the selection processes for school principals should ensure that they are conversant with, sympathetic to and accountable for the implementation of taha maori in their schools.

They also passed a remit calling for the Education Department to give status to bilingual and bicultural attributes in people. Maori people with these attributes should be recognised as suitably qualified to be paid teachers of the maori language.

This would mean that such people could become maori language teachers without having to undergo the usual training college courses to become teachers. Other remits passed at the hui were: • That the maori language become part of the secondary core curriculum, rather than an optional subject. • That the hui endorsed the spirit of their resolutions passed by the maori education development conference at Ngaruawahia’s Turangawaewae marae in March. One of those urged

maori people to pull their children out of the education system and set up their own schools. • That the maori language be recognised as an official language of New Zealand. • That taha maori be an integral component in the total curriculum, structure and organisation of all schools, and that it be given a minimum time allowance. A number of other remits were aimed at supporting this remit, calling for allocations of time, money, people and resources to ensure it was carried out. One also called for trainee teachers to be selected with a view to their strength in taha maori.

• That the review of the core curriculum be rejected until it has been redrafted in accordance with maori principles. PPTA field officer Peter Timmins of Hamilton said many people at the hui were deeply disillusioned with Education Minister Merv Wellington when they learned the review had been prepared by a group with no maori members.

• That all advisory committees set up by the Minister of Education should include representatives nominated by groups like the Maori Women’s Welfare League.

• That School Certificate be abolished and replaced by a broader means of assessment. The hui recorded that it deplored the way School Certificate

gave a significant number of pupils a sense of failure. • That a separate teachers’ training college be set up, run by maori people along maori lines. • That an in-service training day be held for all teachers to be made aware of the need for taha maori in the school curriculum. • That until national examinations are abolished, papers should be returned to pupils after being marked.