Kerre Woodham: Changing expectations better than saving places for Maori

The associate Minister for Education was making headlines this week with his proposal that universities should allow Maori students open access without qualifications.

Dr Pita Sharples, also the Maori Party co-leader, says the dice are loaded against Maori in the school system and that the underachievement of Maori, particularly young Maori men, is stupid, ridiculous and intolerable. He's right. The waste is appalling, but open access to university is not the answer.

Young Maori men need to know that achievement in a white male-dominated world is not selling out. Their sisters seem to be getting the message - I remember visiting He Huarahi Tamariki years ago when Susan Baragwanath set up the school for teenage mums. One of the main impediments to their success was their boyfriends. They did all they could to bring the women down because of their own fear of losing their misguided idea of mana.

Sharples has backtracked somewhat - he says Maori would have to attend a pre-tertiary learning course to get them up to speed. He was simply saying the old model of teacher lecturing to students is not the best way for Maori or kinaesthetic children to learn.

He's right. While our education system works well for most kids, it fails others but it's not an issue of ethnicity. It's an issue of learning styles.

The problem with young Maori men is not about the schools, though. It's about expectation.

So many parents of young Maori men will see university as something for other people's kids - flash people's kids. Attitudes change. And hopefully the parents of many young Maori men will demand more of them and expect them to achieve at the highest level.

Sir Apirana Ngata, Te Rangi Hiroa/Sir Peter Buck, Sir Maui Pomare and Mahuta Te Wherowhero would be turning in their graves to see so many of their young men turning into ersatz gangstas rather than the leaders they imagined they would inspire.

* www.kerrewoodham.com