tKR a growing force

Tu Tangata, Issue 18, 1 June 1984, Page 17

tKR a growing force

“T” he kohanga reo movement may rank next to the New Zealand Party as one of the fastest growing political movements in New Zealand, according to Auckland Maori Council chairman Ranginui Walker.

kohanga reo children and maintain their grading and staff levels.” Dr Walker also attacked Education Minister Merv Wellington and ‘‘a coterie of principals” for “watering down taha maori” in the first draft of the secondary school core curriculum. This “unilateral action” by the minister was an affirmation of pakeha cultural dominance, he said. “The minister’s emasculation of taha maori in the curriculum review provides concrete evidence that the strategy of reform has failed,” Dr Walker said. That was why last month’s maori education development conference at Ngaruawahia had advocated maori withdrawal from the education system and the establishment of alternative schools modelled on the principles underlying kohanga reo, he said. Only when the taha maori had been liberated would it and taha pakeha “realise the dream of coequal partnership entered into by the signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi 144 years ago,” Dr Walker said. Dr Walker is a senior lecturer at Auckland University’s continuing education department, and belongs to the Whakatohea people of the Opotiki district in the Bay of Plenty.

Dr Walker told the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association maori education hui at Huntly’s Waahi marae in April that kohanga reo was also one of the most dynamic and innovative education programmes in New Zealand. “Ostensibly the kohanga reo exist to teach pre-schoolers the maori language,” he said. “The unforeseen side effects include many young mothers not only learning their own language, but also becoming politically active as they grapple the constraints imposed by pakeha bureaucracy for a fair distribution of resources needed to attain their goals. “Symptomatic of this politicisation was the attendance of 1000 people at Turangawaewae marae for the kohanga reo conference in January.... “As children leave the kohanga reo, mothers shop around schools to seek out those that offer bilingual continuity. “Where no bilingual programme is offering some parents hold back their children in the kohanga reo for a further year,” Dr Walker said. “As we enter into the era of declining rolls because of the falling birth rate, primary schools will be forced to go bilingual to attract