Which failed - the system or kids?

Alienated and under-achieving in the mainstream, some Maori students have found an alternative -- but it is not one favoured by all.

These five sullen faces personify one of the chief failures of the education reforms.

Tomorrow's Schools promised equity for Maori by meeting their particular needs and ensuring their interests were represented "throughout each of the agencies at the centre."

Maori are, after all, predicted to account for 20 per cent of our high school population as we head into the next century.

Schools were specifically required to consult Maori over their charter -- the document required by the reforms to set out the school's main objectives.

But, says Dr Graham Smith, a senior lecturer in Auckland University's Maori education unit, the devolution of power has been illusory for Maori.

The democratic process should have delivered a relative proportion of Maori parents on boards of trustees. But while Maori make up 20 per cent of the students, their parents represent only 13 per cent of board members, and a large number of those have been co-opted rather than elected.

Not only are they outnumbered on boards, they tend to lack the professional skills required to have an effective voice.

As a result, two reports this month from Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) record a distressing level of failure and alienation among Maori students and their families.

The first, on the social and economic gaps between Maori and non-Maori, shows that:

* 38 per cent of Maori pupils leave school early with no qualifications, compared with 4 per cent of non-Maori;

* Maori account for 42 per cent of students suspended or expelled;

* Only 64 per cent of Maori eligible to sit School Certificate do so, compared with 92 per cent of non-Maori;

* Those who do sit are less likely than Pakeha to gain B grades or above in School certificate or Bursary.

The second report from the consultation process that followed last year's discussion paper Making Education Work for Maori, describes how Maori continue to feel that because their own experience of school was demeaning they are reluctant to become involved as a parents.
When they do speak out, they feel they are not listened to.

Not only has the system largely failed to embrace cultural diversity, but Maori educators also complain that the reforms have not adequately compensated for Maori economic disadvantage, a factor which equates with educational under-achievement the world over.

The five we meet here have all been expelled from their local Hamilton high school.

Tristine, 15, says her life at school was dominated by continual punishment for petty crimes such as being five minutes late.

Kylie had the same problem and would be marked absent when she was late, blighting her attendance record.

The end came for Willie's schooling when he set off the fire alarms, forcing pupils and staff to stand outside in the rain.

"School sucks," says Willie. "The only time I was shown respect was when I was doing my Maori studies. The only one who tried to help me was my Maori studies teacher."

Ricky too hated school so much he continually misbehaved.

Now in alternative education at the City West Activity Centre in Nawton, Hamilton, the group is thriving.

Because as these five attest, it is not that they do not want to achieve, it is that they do not always respond to conventional schooling. Overtly, or subtly, they feel subject to racism.

The reforms, says Dr Smith, did nothing to overcome the marginalisation of Maori culture and values -- which means the marginalisation of Maori students.

But put these children in a school that respects them and their culture and the results can be remarkable.

City West Activity Centre director Yvonne Wilson says these were students with low self-esteem and minimal confidence.

Now, with a curriculum covering both academic subjects and life skills, they are enjoying learning. Shaun is so keen he arrives at school each morning before the teachers.

Wilson says they are the most enthusiastic when the subject is Maori.

Ask Graham Smith why he was able to reach the top of the education ladder while so many fellow Maori do not, and he will credit his Maori boarding school, St Stephens.

Smith believes Maori are best educated where their culture is valued. Which is why he is a founder of the kura kaupapa Maori, immersion units where Maori are taught in their own language and English is taught as a second language.
Although they pre-date the reforms, the new policy has encouraged them.

There are now 54 kura kaupapa Maori throughout the country, catering for more than 3000 students.

Graham Smith attributes the success of kura kaupapa Maori in part to culturally sensitive teaching and parents being given autonomy.

Instilling pride in their Maori identity fosters in children a willingness to learn and achieve, he says, and because the system operates as a whanau the economically advantaged help the disadvantaged.

Less enamoured with the kura kaupapa Maori is the head of the Education Review Office head, Judith Aitken, who has "a conspicuous number of concerns" about the level of professional and managerial training among the people running them.

"We have expectations of them," she says, "because they deal with New Zealand children like anyone else."

Yet the problem remains that many Maori children are failing before they reach formal learning.

John Graham, former Auckland Grammar principal and commissioner of the Maori and Pacific Island dominated Nga Tapuwae College, now called Southern Cross, says Maori and Pacific Island children are reaching school-age without any of the learning skills and attitudes that Pakeha children gain from having books at home and being read to.

Only 40 per cent of Maori children are in early childhood education, compared with 63 per cent of non-Maori.

"We know many of our students come to school without sufficient pre-school experience," says Terry Bates, campus director of Southern Cross.

"They don't know how to play, sit or concentrate on a task.
There is not enough richness of experience in a disadvantaged child's life.

"The parents," he adds, "don't know how to reproduce education -- they don't know how to draw aptitude out of their children."

So while the reforms have failed to address these complex, but fundamental issues, they have in a sense freed those committed educationalists like John Graham and Terry Bates to find local solutions, without the interference of rigid bureaucracy.

Graham says one of the reasons for combining three schools to become Southern Cross junior, middle and senior schools with one director, was to ensure each level of the school could not pass on its reading and numeracy failures to the next level without that being noticed and addressed.

And now Graham is pushing for disadvantaged South Auckland schools to be run by one board, to compensate for the skills-shortage among parents.

Meanwhile, Terry Bates is putting together a new programme for next year's new entrants, concentrating on intellectual readiness to learn, numeracy and literacy.

While Bates agrees the old system was probably too rigid, he also believes schools and boards were better supported.

Now he is looking beyond Southern Cross to ask how we can deliver basic achievement levels to the disadvantaged across the country.

But self-management means there is no structure for the lessons from his successes and failures to be shared locally or nationally.