Culture groups no magic cure for Maori students

By ALLAN PERROTT education reporter

Encouraging Maori students to join school cultural groups is not a magic bullet to improve academic success.

An Education Review Office study of Maori in mainstream schools questions whether the focus on such activities will close the academic gap between Maori and non-Maori.

The study released yesterday reviewed ERO reports completed on 442 schools last year.

Cultural groups are the most common tool used to foster Maori participation in schools, but the ERO said greater focus on the quality of teaching of Maori students would be better.

It also found one in five schools failed to collect separate information on Maori students.

Bali Haque, principal of Pakuranga College and former president of the Secondary Principals Association, said the ERO was "absolutely right".

"Cultural programmes are important in making schools places where Maori students feel at home," he said. "But there is no question they are not enough and can be an excuse for not getting to the really hard stuff, which is improving achievement."

Associate Minister of Maori Affairs John Tamihere was pleased to see more effort was being made to encourage Maori students, but called for more effort to find out what makes them tick.

"Maori kids are predominantly coming from households that don't have a lot of the right things happening," he said. "Schools are now the places where they are getting their role models."

A Ministry of Education report found Maori accounted for 21 per cent of the school populations but 41 per cent of all stand-downs and 47 per cent of all suspensions.

The ERO said it was clear such high rates of suspension, exclusion and truancy affected Maori achievement.

Statistics from the Qualifications Authority show Maori students passed only 58 per cent of the NCEA standards they sat last year.

This figure was better than that for Pacific Islanders, 56 per cent, but fell behind those for Pakeha and Asian, 72 per cent and 71 per cent respectively.