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Everything from class passing to racism, “seeded throughout” the system, could be kicked out of school in a $ 42 million program launched by Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis.
The minister launched Te Hurihanganui at Takapūwāhia Marae in Porirua, kicking off an anti-racism initiative for schools and communities, with the aim of helping Maori students.
Davis said that when he started as a principal at a Far North school in 2001 and launched the tests, there was a nearly 100 percent failure among Maori students to meet an appropriate standard. The staff, he said, appeared to be resigned to the result.
“I think those attitudes and this acceptance of the low achievements of the Maori … that is systemic racism.”
Joel Maxwell / Stuff
Associate Labor Education Minister Kelvin Davis speaks at the Takapūwāhia Marae at the launch of Te Hurihanganui, a $ 42 million anti-racism initiative for schools.
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He said racism was “seeded throughout” the system. “Educators must be challenged about the results of Maori students in classes.”
The 2019 budget allocated $ 42 million over three years for the initiative, which begins in Porirua and Tawa, and is confirmed to be implemented in Te Puke and Eastern Southland. There will be three other communities, a mix of rural and urban, with two on the North Island and one on the South Island, to be confirmed.
Racism is rarely apparent in schools, he said, but there is a lack of faith in Maori children and they are not supposed to do well.
“It is almost always Maori children where this lack of faith and this lack of aspiration occurs.”
The changes he would like to see happen included the elimination of streaming from schools.
He said funding would flow on a case-by-case basis to each initiative in the communities, creating “tailor-made” programs for themselves.
Davis said that the general community’s resistance to giving money to Maori initiatives without a more prescriptive approach was “racist in itself.”
“It is up to the program to show that it is getting value.”
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Labor returned to government with five cabinet ministers, as well as an alternate and undersecretary.
The assessment would be left to the individual communities, although he personally would like to see a rapid improvement in the performance of Maori students.
“It must also be an achievement in what is important to Maori, and those communities will make those decisions.”
Davis said he would like the initiative to eventually spread to the rest of the country.
