Te reo being dumbed down, says exam critic

Pem Bird says te reo education is being 'dumbed down'. Photo / The Aucklander

An organisation representing some kura kaupapa wants the value of te reo exams reassessed, saying non-Maori-medium students have it too easy.

However, the Qualifications Authority, which sets exams, says this is an unfair complaint levelled at second-language learners.

Pem Bird is the chairman of the 16-member Nga Kura-a-Iwi-o-Aotearoa and is principal of a kura in Murupara.

He is critical of this year's NCEA Level 1 exam for the easier te reo Maori course, which he believes read more like an English assessment.

It was also worth 12 credits, the exact number that students who are proficient in the Maori language and sit te reo Rangatira can expect to earn.

Mr Bird said that was wrong. "The anomaly is that the credit value of 12 is exactly the same for both pathways despite the obvious fact that the Reo Rangatira pathway pupils are required in their exam to function at a far more sophisticated and authentic level.

"Maori is being dumbed down."

Kura-a-Iwi wants the Qualifications Authority to reduce the value for the te reo Maori exam to six credits to "more accurately reflect the reality of the gaping chasm between the two pathways".

Longer term, the group wants the NZQA to work on just a single exam to replace the two-format system.

NZQA's deputy chief executive of qualifications, Bali Haque, said that was not likely to happen because it would act as a "disincentive" for those who wanted to learn Maori - a situation no one wanted to contemplate.

Te reo Maori students and their te reo Rangatira counterparts were essentially learning different courses at levels that reflected their ability.

"What we're talking about are two different beasts. You can't have one standard for both types of people. Effectively, [te reo Rangatira students] would be competing with people who [learn] it as a second language."

Each of the 12 credits represented 10 hours of learning different material.

However, people should not infer that to reo Rangatira credits were being undermined by having the same weighting as te reo Maori credits because only the first group counted towards NZQA literacy requirements, Mr Haque said.

There would not be an issue if New Zealanders were all bilingual, he said. Then a single exam would make sense.

Mr Bird agreed with this point, saying: "In the long term we're going to have to start teaching Maori from Year 1 as a real option in all schools - that's the sort of thinking required."