can we achieve our goals once we have found them?’ May I suggest an answer to all these questions. Although your views may differ from mine I would like to present mine, particularly in relation to education. These views are from a Maori who has been through our present education system, qualifying at university level. Although we, as a Maori race, have come a long way there should not be any complacency. We have not yet reached the educational level of the European. Far too many of our children drop out of school from lack of encouragement. Far too many leave school when another year could be of some real value. Any additional year of school is an additional qualification. If we look at statistics we find only one quarter of all Maori children sitting School Certificate in any one year obtain this qualification. There should be about fifty per cent. Therefore, there are a few hundred Maori pupils who sit the exam but do not pass even though they have the intellectual capacity to do so. Seven per cent of all Maori pupils leaving high school should go on to university. At the moment only one per cent go on to higher learning of this nature. This is a poor picture, and there is a need to exploit the potential within our children now, when half of the Maori population is under 15 years of age. If we don't, then we will perpetuate a problem longer than necessary. It requires a greater awareness by all that education is most necessary at present and will be increasingly more so in the future. If there is anything which is respected nowadays, it is an educational qualification. There is no limit to how far one can go, providing one has educational qualifications. Therefore, it is necessary to discover how children learn and how they are able to obtain the most out of the education system.

Language There is no doubt that the English language is the most important single subject in the curriculum at both primary and secondary school and even at university level. Therefore, all children must be subjected right from birth to the accepted language of the schools. Far too often our children arrive at primary school linguistically ill-equipped and at a disadvantage when compared with the European child. In addition, our education system quite rightly has been planned for the European child, since it has its origins in Britain. Immediately a Maori child, or any child, becomes aware that he is at a disadvantage it becomes a psychological problem and he does not perform as well as might be expected. His selfrespect is damaged. All children have a tremendous amount of learning to do while at school. Any ‘disadvantaged’ child finds it hopelessly intolerable when he or she is relegated to the lower section of the class. Of course these children do not catch up to the European child generally but find themselves in the ‘C’ and ‘D’ classes at secondary level. Continual failure throughout their school lives inevitably results in poor performance, low achievements and damaged self respect, and before long they yearn to leave school not because of their lack of native intelligence, but ‘because school life has offered them nothing but failure’. It is, therefore, important to bring up your children with better English fluency. Sit down and talk; allow them to talk; read books to them; answer their questions and give them a great number of varied experiences while they are young. These rich experiences in the bush, on the beach, at the zoo, the airport, the railway station, the farm, the river, and on the lake will provide further opportunities to increase their facility with English. At pre-school level these experiences are vital. All children will learn and are willing to do so.

Maori Language All children are capable of handling two languages quite easily. But the most important factor here is that far too often most Maori children have been subjected to poor Maori and poor English and these poor languages have been mixed up so much that the ‘disadvantaged’ child starts primary school with a dialect that is not the type that European children have experienced right from birth nor is it the language demanded by the school. What is required is correct Maori and correct English. In this way you can give your child a better chance to succeed at school.