Maori Education Report Card Gives Whanau A+
Te Ururoa Flavell, Education Spokesperson for the Maori Party
Monday 17 December 2007

The Maori Party has today congratulated Maori whanau throughout Aotearoa for ‘getting involved in the education system in ways the evidence suggests are worthwhile’.

Te Ururoa Flavell, education spokesperson for the Maori Party, said “it is a huge boost to all of our whanau, to see the Ministry’s report revealing that whanau have stood as candidates for school boards of trustees, participated in education programmes, or significantly, had a key role at home, supporting their tamariki in their learning”.

“It is great to see the system recognising the power that whanau hold in helping tamariki Maori enjoy success in education” said Mr Flavell.

“There are some really positive achievements coming out loud and strong in the report, including that there has been a ten percent increase in the number of Maori students enrolled in settings where te reo Maori is used for more than 81% of the time” said Mr Flavell.

“We are really pleased to see the increase in numbers of Maori children starting school, having already participated in early childhood education (at 90%, up from 86% in 2002)”

“Maori immersion settings have proven to be successful as we see in the results for Year 11 students in NCEA rates, being higher than for their peers in English language schools” said Mr Flavell.

“It is fantastic to see that the proportion of Year 13 Maori students to gain an NCEA level three has jumped from 25% (2004) to 32% (2006).

“Not so good, however, is the massive decline in enrolments in formal tertiary education courses in te reo Maori, down from 41283 (2003) to 21331 (2006)” said Flavell.

“The loss of nearly twenty thousand young Maori from enrolling in tertiary education is an outrageous outcome of the Government’s attack against wananga and is a disappointing end to an otherwise positive report”.

ENDS

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