Govt scraps 'ethnic' grants

By RUTH BERRY AND AUDREY YOUNG

The Government will abandon teaching scholarships for Maori and Pacific people, the first of the ethnically targeted policies the Government has put under review to be dumped.

New and more lucrative scholarships will replace them for students wanting to train to teach in Maori and Pasifika languages.

Further announcements will be made today and tomorrow about changes to other teaching scholarships available, also focusing on subject area shortages, such as maths.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard indicated in February, after National leader Don Brash's Orewa speech attacking "race-based funding", the ethnically targeted TeachNZ scholarships would go.

It was unclear then whether Mr Mallard had decided to axe them before or after Orewa.

Asked yesterday whether the scholarships would have remained unchanged if it weren't for Dr Brash's speech, he avoided the question.

"I think Dr Brash's speech helped us focus a little on some of the issues."

The $10,000 scholarships, available to aspiring Maori and Pacific teachers, were established by the National Government and expanded by the present Government.

About 400 of them were available last year.

Despite having indicated his plan to axe them months before, Mr Mallard included the scholarships in the first batch of policies unveiled last month to be examined under the review of ethnically based programmes.

The review itself was announced in response to the Orewa backlash.

Mr Mallard said yesterday the Government had concluded "that scholarships based on ethnicity which have been offered since the 1990s could not be justified".

The standard of people receiving scholarships had been "generally very good", but they weren't addressing a particular need, which was a shortage of people able to teach Maori and Pacific languages.

"For example being able to teach chemistry at year 12 in Maori is quite a distinct skill and we want to train people in doing that."

Under the new scheme about 300 scholarships will be awarded each year and could be worth up to $20,000 each.