June 11, 2019
Expert panel extends Te Kotahitanga kaupapa across all ages
One of the architects of the new Te Hurihanganui education framework says it will be even more comprehensive than Te Kotahitanga.
Professor Mere Berryman was part of the team that developed the original programme to change the way secondary schools engage with Māori pupils.
That was scrapped by the previous National Government on cost grounds, even though the achievement rates of Māori pupils at Te Kotahitanga schools was three times higher than for those at other schools with a similar ethnic make-up.
She was then part of the team asked to put aspects of Te Kotahitanga and four other pilots into a new framework, but says that effort was under-resourced while still being expected to turn around 170 years of colonised education in three years.
Te Hurihanganui, which will receive $34 million over the next for years to pilot, was developed by experts from early childhood to tertiary level.
"That was one of the biggest differences, we had this pool of mātanga who were able to pull together and bring together something we believe could be used from early childhood to tertiary that would include iwi and whānau and would also push back on the racism we know exists in our colonised education system," Dr Berryman says.
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