School site may revert to local iwi

Crown land on which a small central Northland Maori school now stands may be returned to descendants of its original Maori owners.

The Ministry Of Education has started a disposal process under the Public Works Act to determine whether Orauta School, near Moerewa, can be returned to the previous owners or their descendants.

The school, now run by an education trust under a Maori incorporation, Maunga Hikurangi Maori, is said by the ministry to be operating illegally because it had officially closed and has not been registered as a private school.

Parents have been warned they could face prosecution for continuing to send their children to an unregistered school, and trustees have been told they risk fines of up to $200 a day for illegally operating an unregistered school under the Education Act.

The ministry believes Orauta's current roll is about 20, but school authorities refuse to disclose the exact numbers.

The 95-year-old school is on Crown land that trustees say was taken under the Public Works Act and reserved for a Maori school following a request from the local community's Ngati Hine ancestors.

The land is believed to have been in Crown ownership since about 1940.

The ministry's Northland region operations manager, Chris Eve, said yesterday that the land disposal process now under way had to be done carefully and would be fully researched.

Records of previous owners and historical exchanges would be examined, and local Maori were already offering their help.

"There's heaps of paperwork," Mr Eve said, "but if the eventual outcome is that the land should be handed back to previous owners or their descendants, then that will happen."

Everything would be done "by the book" under the Public Works Act, he said.

If the process was relatively straightforward, it could be completed in a few months.

But if there were disputes among previous land-owners and the issue had to be referred to the Maori Land Court, the disposal process could take several years.

Mr Eve said he told a hui at nearby Otiria Marae this week, called to discuss the school, that he would see how he could speed up the land disposal process.

Community spokesman Lou Tana said he was pleased the ministry recognised the potential that manawhenua [the land block shareholders] had to play.

He hoped the ministry would return to the community for more talks on the issues.

Troubled school

Orauta School, now renamed Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Maara o Hineamaru Ki Orauta, has refused to close as ordered by the Government following a ministry review of schools in central Northland and Russell Peninsula areas last year.

It was one of eight identified for closure or merger with other schools.