KEY POINTS:
Kyle Smith's mastery of Maori is still pretty raw but he is one of thousands of Pakeha enrolling in Te Wananga o Aotearoa courses.
From 2001 until 2006 a quarter, or 4326, of Te Wananga o Aotearoa's 17,304 first year te reo graduates were Pakeha.
Maori make up the bulk of the graduates at 70 per cent while Pacific people account for 3 per cent and Asian and other ethnic group's 1 per cent each. It's a level of support from Pakeha the wananga hopes will increase over time.
And it's a trend that has remained constant over the history of the Te Ara Reo programme even through the difficult period two years ago when the institution's financial management was scrutinised and found wanting, and politicians criticised the quality of wananga courses.
Those issues do not concern Mr Smith, a 34-year-old Hamilton-based lifeguard. He still has trouble with the pronunciation and the curling r's can pose problems, but his tutor Wiremu Beazley is happy with the way Mr Smith is picking things up. For Mr Smith, who has an adopted Maori brother, Mark, making the choice to study was initially about moving closer to his brother's roots.
"I wanted to know more about him - connect with him. He was blown away when he heard I was learning."
But for the most part his reasons for wanting to learn were not complicated. "I just wanted to learn - I live in this land and I want to be able to speak the language of this land."
Wananga chief executive Bentham Ohia said the fact that Pakeha stuck with the wananga even through the bad times was confirmation that students believed in the course.
He said many of the Pakeha students were parents of Maori children who wanted their children to know their language.
And knowing each other's languages meant knowing each other a little bit better, he said.
"I believe it's part of building our national identity. This is the Maori language but this is also a New Zealand language. Increasing the understanding between Maori and non-Maori adds to the vibrancy of our culture. It brings us together."
