CORE Education Supports Ending Streaming In Aotearoa

We want all rangatahi to be inspired by their futures, we want them to be thriving in their education, confident in their culture and determining their own path. Streaming is a barrier to this vision and it needs to end.

Ending Streaming in Aotearoa (2021) Tokona Te Raki | Maori Futures Collective

CORE Education, a social enterprise with an equity kaupapa, congratulates and stands alongside Tokona Te Raki as they champion a system response to ending streaming in Aotearoa. The release of the Tokona Te Raki report into this pervasive practice is a call to action which CORE intends to answer.

Streaming is deeply embedded into the organisational structure of many primary and secondary schools in Aotearoa, and even in early childhood. Whether the practice is called banding or ability grouping, it is a method of sifting learners for perceived ability and manageability. It comes from a deficit perspective and, as the report shows, systemic bias means those in the ‘bottom’ group, band, or stream are often Maori and Pacific learners.

CORE’s Tumu Whakarae, Dr Hana O’Regan, says, “Our company vision is for an equitable and thriving Aotearoa through learning. Realising this kaupapa leads us to seek out and actively work in, places where learners experience inequitable outcomes or treatment, fewer opportunities, and limited resources. We know first hand that it can be hard to do things differently, and that learning communities will need support to look with fresh eyes at how they can ‘de-stream’ so that all learners have the best chance of success.”

Dr O’Regan acknowledges that addressing an inequitable practice like streaming requires these communities to be courageous, and be willing to change. “But we are ready to pick up the wero placed before us from Tokona Te Raki to do what we can, as a Tiriti-honouring organisation, to advocate for and support equitable learning for all.”

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