No More Pacific Language Reading Materials

No More Pacific Language Reading Materials

New Zealand Ministry of Education Ceases Production of the TUPU Series Pacific Island Reading Materials From December 2010.

The NZ Ministry of Education announced today the 4th September that it has been instructed by Government to cease producing the TUPU Pasifika languages series from the end of this year The Ministry is calling it a pause, but documents make it clear it ceasing production indefinitely- (double talk?). There will be no more for the indefinite future or until a change of Government as according to the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Education literacy in a Pacific language does not contribute to the academic advancement of Pacific students in our schools. Monty Python has redefined literacy like characters, as only literacy in English. (See the USA English Only movement; Crawford 2007, 2008, 2009; May 2009)

The TUPU series are Pacific language readers for beginners in a range of Pacific languages includes; Cook Is Maori , Niuean and Tokelau. According to the recent Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People NZ recently signed and the proposed Human Rights Commission National Languages Policy, these languages are minority protected Indigenous languages of the NZ Realm and NZ is obliged to protect and support them. This includes their use in the Cooks Niue and Tokelau themselves which are all part of the legal Realm of NZ governed by the Queen of NZ (See NZ Governor General¹s website). This appears to be little more than institutional racism and a Pacific Human Rights violation of major proportions. We guess it will take a complaint to the HRC and a court case to get NZ to live up to its legal obligations in this regard- Does this sound familiar to our Maori colleagues !!! For the full legal situation see our paper- in the current edition of Alternative Journal: Special Pacific edition pub. Sept 22 2010 and also available on line on EBSCO HOST (See also May, 2001,2009).

The TUPU series is vital importance to the NZ curriculum for at least the following reasons-

1) Pacific reading materials are vital to the Learning Languages Curriculum learning and teaching of Pacific language for all NZ children in the Learning Languages Curriculum. Without literacy materials it is very unlikely students can become successful fluent learners of these languages as they provide the major source of vocabulary input (Nation, 2000) especially those threatened languages when use in the families and communities has dropped so low that vocabulary input is now very limited from community sources. -Or is it just that Learning languages is mainly about foreign languages like French, German, Japanese, and Chinese?

2) Pacific reading materials and literacy and bilingualism in Pacific languages is identified in the Ministry of Educations own website LEAP on tki as a major contributor to academic success of Pasifika students in NZ schools for which they paid Prof Stephen May, and Dr Margaret Franken over $350,000 to research. In addition they have just paid us $60,000 for a just completed review research on Maori and Pasifika bilingual/ immersion education and a separate $60,000from the Manurewc Education Initiative to produce a standardized Samoan Reading Test. Last month they let a $60,000 contract to review ECE similarly. This is in addition to the huge research base on the benefits for literacy in English (Baker, 2006; Garcia, 2009; Thomas & Collier,1997, 2002) of being literate in your own languages as well as in English. This research is presented in ALL the current MoE documents including Effective Literacy Practice and the ELL assessment documents we have all been encouraged to use in the National Standards briefings recently. The apparent unawareness of Ministry Officials of their own research and policy astounds us, and makes NZ look like something out of Monty Python and Faulty Towers. No wonder the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs is currently investigating establishing its own Bilingual Education schools (see 2010 MPIA Statement of Intent). 3) The TUPU series is also essential to the 33 Pasifika Medium Bilingual Education programmes that run in NZ schools. Without a series of readers in Pacific students cannot become bilingual and bi-lterate and the many benefits for academic achievement acknowledged in the Ministry of Education¹s Best Evidence, Best Practice report by May Hill & Tiakiwai (2004). In addition the materials are shared with Pacific countries who use these materials for their literacy programmes in the Islands or special publication series as in the recent case of Samoa are produced under contract for Samoa. For research on the academic success of students in these programmes see May, Hill & Tiakiwai, 2004, May 2005, McCaffery, Tuafuti et all (2003); Aukuso, 2005, Esera, 2002; Toloa: McCaffery, Dale & Keegan, 2010; Tuafuti & McCaffery, 2005)

4) The cut yet again sends a message to Pacific communities that their aspirations for our children are of little interest or concern to the politicians or those Ministry educators charged with ensuring the future well being of the 20% of our 2030 NZ population that will be of Pacific ancestry. Claims of valid genuine consultation with the Pacific community look only like attempts to shift the blame for the cuts from the Ministry of Education to the Pacific community itself. We will watch with interest what the Pacific community, the HRC and the courts have to say about such deceit.

We call on all language and literacy educators to express you and your organisation¹s concerns to the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley; The Prime Minister Hob John Key; The Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Karen Sewell, Dr Pita Sharples and maori party MPs, your local MPs, Labour Pacific MPs and Pacific Organisations and churches.
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