KEY POINTS:
Last monday was another disheartening news story on Maori statistics. Waikato University academic Russell Bishop released his new research showing that 53 per cent of Maori boys were now leaving school with no qualifications at all, compared with 20 per cent of Pakeha boys.
It is something that we're all going to pay the price of in the future. Despite a multi-million-dollar investment by the government to lift Maori education performance, the number of young Maori people leaving school without qualifications is actually growing.
The Post Primary Teachers Association agreed that the figures were disturbing, especially given that huge funding had been pumped into the problem, but said that we simply have to work harder and better in this area. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Education said there was no quick-fix. We were assured, however, that this is being taken very seriously and that initiatives have been put in place to address these issues.
As Maori Party MP, Te Ururoa Flavell, unhelpfully, pointed out, a major government report back in 1960 revealed that the Education Department was failing in its obligation to provide equal opportunity education for Maori. Flavell wryly added that if Maori education was a business, it would have been declared bankrupt long ago.
What all that means, of course, is that 47 years after recognising that there was a serious problem, the people in charge of our education still have no idea how to address it and are bereft of further initiatives.
Many people will react with frustration that we still have this problem. Some will say that if Maori only worked harder at school, then these figures would improve.
But what has not been said this week is that when Maori have led initiatives to address Maori education, they have been enormously successful. The best examples of this are the three wanangas (educational institutions), all of which were set up by Maori despite concerted opposition by successive governments and by mainstream educational institutions. The three wanangas had to go to the Privy Council in England to win the right to exist and to receive funding like other tertiary institutions in New Zealand.
Without accusing anyone of institutional racism, it does seem curious that there has been plenty of money available for mainstream institutions to help deserving Maori, yet only after years of protracted legal wrangling did the government agree to provide $60 million to establish the set-up costs of the three wananga. While this figure seems a lot, it is spread over three separate tertiary institutions with over 15 campuses. A single mainstream provincial polytechnic gets more government money for capital works. Auckland University received hundreds of millions of dollars in government capital funding at the time when the wananga actually had more students.
And the wanangas never got all the money. The previous Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, reneged in 2005 and withheld the last $20 million of the promised money, which precipitated a cashflow crisis in the largest wananga. According to wananga supporters this allowed the Government to take over the Wananga O Aotearoa on the basis that it was financially at risk.
In election year, in a high-profile political hatchet job by all the major political parties, the main wananga was brought to its knees. Corporate managers were put in charge, and the independent members of the wananga governing council were sacked, as was the founding CEO.
These were the people who, for over 20 years, built the wananga into the biggest tertiary institution in the country, with close to 250,000 Maori and non-Maori going through its doors. These founders had mortgaged their homes, and by blood, sweat and tears created an educationally successful story for Maori and other underachieving New Zealanders.
Four out of 10 students who enrolled on wananga courses over the past five years were not in the workforce. Sixty-one per cent had no high school qualifications and 20 per cent only had NCEA1 (a C pass in School Certificate). That means more than 80 per cent who enrolled had school certificate or below. Half the students were non-Maori.
Yet 40 per cent went on to graduate. Student graduation at university is 32 per cent; at polytechnic 29 per cent and only one in four graduates in private training establishments graduate. The wananga must have some answers to helping Maori and other education underachievers.
I currently sit on the Wananga Council and am helping enrol hundreds of low-paid workers to take courses. Many members of my union have completed courses and say that it was the most meaningful education of their lives. In spite of the fact that the Wananga o Aotearoa was taken over by Government managers and many of its leaders have been removed, the spirit is still there.
If the Government and the people who manage education really want to lift education achievement for Maori and other under-achievers they need look no further than the wanangas.
The new chief executive of Te Wananga O Aotearoa Bentham Ohia believes if he was able to provide secondary school opportunities to the 53 per cent of Maori boys who drop out of mainstream education he will solve the problem for us.
