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Sections > Maori > Aiming for the Stars in Maori Education |
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| Aiming for the Stars in Maori Education |
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| Author : A speech by Howard Fancy at the Knowledge Wave Kahungunu in Gisborne Sept 2002
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| Created : 03 Oct 2002
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| Last Revision : 03 Oct 2002
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Contents:
The Central Role of Education
What are the stars to be reaching for?
`Live as Maori'
Citizens of the World
Good Health
Navigating your Way
What are some important milestones en route to the stars?
In my view, the NCEA is an important step forward.
Thanks for inviting me to address this important gathering.
Today I have been asked to speak about aiming for the stars for M�ori education.
In doing so I have in mind the heroic voyagers from the Pacific who arrived here a millennium ago. They were skilled navigators, looking to the stars to guide their way, and relying on prevailing currents and the flight paths of migratory birds.
Now a thousand years later, we are once again voyagers charting new - and exciting - pathways for M�ori education, in ways that successfully integrate both the past and the future.
In a nutshell, that explains our common mission.
But I will start off with a few remarks about myself. My name is Howard Fancy. I am the Secretary for Education, born and bred in Christchurch in the kingdom of the unstoppable Crusaders. Call me a one-eyed Cantabrian.
I wouldn't be lying if I said I hardly saw a brown face before I came to Wellington. I come from a white, middle-class family of teachers; my father, sister and sister-in-law all worked for the profession. I broke the mould and trained as a chemist - but decided I wanted a bigger test tube so I switched to economics before joining the Treasury in the 1970s.
In the 1970s I took a job in Wellington at the Treasury and spent some years on the major projects like Think Big. When they decided I'd done enough damage to the economy, they decided to let me loose on education.
The Central Role of Education
Having been in the hot seat now for six years, I am more convinced than ever about the central role of education to the future lives of all people and to the future development of the country.
This is why I think it is critical to remember that our children are just 20 percent of our population, but they are 100 percent of our future. This why we all have a huge responsibility to get it right for the children of today.
The M�ori population is a youthful one and education must be a major focus.
And that is why I applaud Kahungunu for mounting a major summit like this one that aims to both recognise and develop the human potential of its people.
When I look back to the 1970s and 1980s, it seems so clear now that we missed the bus when it came to nurturing and building the skills of our peoples.
As a nation we did not read the global signs well. Most left school at 15 or 16. Too many people got trapped in sectors that could not compete when the economy finally had to adjust to global realities.
It was not until the late 1980s that as a country we started to come to grips with skill and education problems that had built up.
Some good things were happening: kohanga was starting its ascendancy to the stars. Many people - including some from education - thought the movement would fizzle out and crash back down to earth. But it didn't.
Kahungunu were actively involved in the movement from the outset, and were also ahead of many other regions in running bilingual schools and classes.
Kohanga was followed by the development of Kura and Wananga which have become established features of our education system.
What are the stars to be reaching for?
At the heart of these stars must be excellence, with excellence being defined in terms that are meaningful for M�ori.
The Hui Taumata Matauranga process with its regional and national hui has helped to map the stars.
The spirit - and the energy - generated by this process has seen debate focus on questions such as "educating for what?", "the importance of language and culture", and issues relating to M�ori authority.
At the Hui Taumata Matauranga, Mason Durie proposed a framework for considering M�ori educational advancement based on three fundamental goals or touchstones.
`Live as Maori'
The first of these goals was `to live as Maori'
If after a decade of formal education, rangatahi walk out of the school gates unprepared to interact within te ao M�ori, their education is not complete.
I see `being Maori' as about access to te ao M�ori, the M�ori world, access to language, culture, marae, resources such as land, tikanga, wh�nau, and kaimoana. It is about being confident about identity and knowing who you are.
The pathways to being strong in one's identity vary.
Much of responsibility lies with parents, whanau Hapu and Iwi. But the government also must carry an important role supporting revitalisation of Te Reo, the development of quality immersion education and the quality of engagement with Maori on education issues.
Schools and educators carry an important responsibility to value the identity and culture of students and to see this as an important asset in the learning process.
This needs to be seen as a responsibility of the whole school and not simply its M�ori staff. It needs to be seen as a key aspect of the relationships schools build with their M�ori communities.
Educators need to recognise that after 15 years of schooling, rangatahi should leave the school able and prepared to interact within both te ao M�ori and te ao whanui, they are in a strong position to build better futures. The challenge here for all of us - especially Pakeha - is to recognise the dual responsibility - some would say obligation - many M�ori face in not only strengthening M�ori society but also wider society.
Citizens of the World
The second goal identified by Mason Durie is for M�ori to actively participate as citizens of the world.
Education is equally about preparing people to play a part as citizens of the world. M�ori rightfully hold high expectations of education. They want it to open doors to technology, to the economy, to the arts and sciences, to the knowledge wave, to understanding others, and to contributing towards a greater good.
This does not contradict the goal of being able to live as M�ori; it simply recognises that M�ori children will live in a variety of contexts and should be able to move from one to the other with relative ease. A strong education is a way to make that transition easy.
Quite apart from the increasing urbanisation of New Zealand, the shrinking globe will bring the cultures of other lands and communities to Hastings or Wairoa, and in turn those towns will be only a web or two away from London and New York. School needs to prepare M�ori students to tackle the world head on, and to participate actively in it so that young M�ori can succeed in the modern world.
On this note, I see that next February, Kahungunu plans to hold a M�ori Economic Summit in Sydney. With more M�ori living across the Tasman than in the whole of Hawkes Bay, it makes good sense to foster closer economic relations with family networks overseas to help build local businesses.
Good Health
The third goal is to enjoy good health and a high standard of living.
Having a good education is one of the most important ways of helping M�ori get there. Educational achievement is directly connected with employment, income levels, standards of health, and quality of life.
On the other hand, where there is educational underachievement, health risks are higher, length of life is reduced, and poor health is a more likely consequence.
A successful education therefore is one that lays down the groundwork for a healthy lifestyle and a career with an income adequate enough to provide a high standard of living.
In putting forward these three guiding stars I think it is important to recognise that different people will give greater priority or greater emphasis to one relative to the other two.
Some will look for the education system to play a stronger role than others in terms of helping students to gain strength in their identity, language and culture.
Thus we have learned as we work with different hapu and Iwi that it is important to discuss the roles and expectations of the education system relative to those of the whanau, community and Iwi.
We have found that where schools use local stories and contexts that critical skills can be developed along with a reinforcement of the child's identity and culture.
Navigating your Way
What are the important navigation features of the pathways to the stars?
The first is the importance of children gaining strong learning foundations.
One key priority in recent years has been the emphasis on children gaining strong learning foundations in language and numeracy.
This has led to a very strong emphasis on increasing access to, and participation in, quality early childhood education.
Priority has been directed in primary schools towards literacy and numeracy.
It has been pleasing to see the significant lift take place in the achievement of younger school children in these important areas over the past four years.
A second navigation point is the importance of high expectations.
It is critical that all those who shape the learning experiences of a child instil in that child very high expectations about what they can become.
Too often this does not happen.
I think of the eight-year-old Tuwharetoa girl who was interviewed as part of a research project.
She said that she had wanted to become a doctor but everyone had told her that children from her school, from her community, did not go to university.
That should simply not happen.
One of the key lessons from the work in Mangere and Otara schools is the importance of strong and genuine beliefs by teachers, community, trustees and policy makers in the ability of children irrespective of their backgrounds and home environments to do well.
We also know that students with health and special needs may require more help and support to engage effectively with education. But being poor or being M�ori is absolutely no reason why all children in our schools should not succeed.
The third navigation point is the importance of quality teaching.
Research makes clear that teachers within classrooms have the biggest impact on student achievement - up to 55 percent.
So how well are our schools doing? We know that our top students are among the best in the world. But we have far too great a spread from top to bottom, with some of the biggest differences occurring within schools rather than between schools. The nature of dispersion varies across subjects, between genders and between ethnicity.
A lot more focus is being given to identifying effective practice and supporting teachers develop their professional capabilities.
A lot of support is being more directed towards strengthening the teaching of literacy and numeracy. More tools are being developed that will help teachers better assess the learning needs of their students. ICT is opening up some new and exciting ways of enhancing student learning and enriching teaching practice.
A fourth navigation point is the recognition that students as they move through our system can need good support and guidance.
Such support might come from good career guidance, mentoring, or access to health, social or special education services.
But the importance of the support of family and whanau is also critical. The "Feed the Mind" campaign focused on ways in which families can encourage the early learning of their children. Home school partnerships and study support centres are other ways that recognise the importance of family.
A fifth navigation point centres around the need for policy makers and educators to increasingly recognise the diversity of students and the diversity of education pathways that they follow.
It seems to me that it was not that long ago the education system was built around assumptions of homogeneity; namely that all students and all teachers were broadly the same.
Today our system needs to recognise a growing diversity of cultures, a diversity of social and family backgrounds, students with special needs, those with disabilities, students who are gifted, and students with different interests.
Secondary schools in particular have absorbed a huge growth in students staying on in school over the past few decades. The range of subjects studied has increased considerably.
This is changing the focus of schools from schools to schooling.
This change of thinking would see the old phrase `a good principal runs a good school' become `the principal of the future is responsible for ensuring, that all of the students in their school are successfully following a quality educational programme'.
The future will see students accessing learning from a much wider range of sources than is the case today.
Increasingly students will undertake different courses at different providers or access quality sources of learning via the internet.
We will see the development of "virtual" schools, specialised academies and school tertiary partnerships.
The final navigation point I will identify today is the importance of information.
Information increases the ability to take responsibility, control and authority.
The Maori education consultations undertaken four years ago had a big impact on me.
It was impossible not to be struck by the huge sense of disempowerment that M�ori had in their relationship to the education system.
This was in complete antithesis to the intention of the "Tomorrow's Schools reforms".
Increasing access to information has been a key goal. Meeting this goal is taking many forms, namely:
Making expectations of what students should achieve much clearer.
Strengthening reporting to parents.
Developing the role of Pouwhakataki.
The Te Mana and Feed the Mind campaigns.
Iwi partnerships reflect a changed way of thinking on how we do things in the education system. They help modify policies and help make them work better in practice.
They have assisted the Ministry enormously to build a better capability to build M�ori perspectives into everything we do.
Above all, these partnerships are proving to be practical and demanding and I can assure you not in the least politically correct.
The iwi partnerships also highlight the challenge for M�ori to take responsibility for helping improve the system. Lifting participation in the early childhood area remains a priority, with the Ministry working with some iwi partners and also whanau, communities and providers to take an active part in their children's early learning.
What are some important milestones en route to the stars?
I have already covered the importance of the early learning foundations.
A second milestone needs to be high numbers of successful school leavers.
Too many students leave our school system without a qualification.
To me the concept of `educational success' increasingly means a successful school leaver will form good skills that can help with problem solving, information management and creativity.
They will also be a young person with good personal skills, strong and confident in their identity and culture. And an employer or institution will be able to see they can apply those skills to bodies of knowledge.
All of which brings me to the NCEA - a hot potato at the moment, and a topic that I know was the subject of a debate after lunch yesterday afternoon.
In my view, the NCEA is an important step forward.
But it is important to remember that it is not an end in itself.
Rather its role is to support and recognise quality learning and teaching.
How will it do this?
It makes expectations of the learners much clearer for student, teacher and parent. Standards have been developed in both Maori and English. By making standards more transparent this lays the foundation for a more informed debate over time as to whether and where the standards should be adjusted over time.
The three levels are designed to provide a challenge to all students.
It allows learning to be recognised during the year rather than requiring the student to depend on how well they do in the end of year exam.
It values and recognises wider learning outcomes, such as research, performance, communication and creative skills that cannot be easily assessed in an exam.
By creating a coherent system of qualification it will enable students to work towards a qualification at a speed that works for them.
Another important milestone is participation and success in tertiary education.
The level of participation by M�ori in tertiary education has increased rapidly over the past few years. It is now higher than that of Pakeha.
This is a huge change from a few years ago.
There are some interesting aspects to this participation.
First participation is concentrated in diploma and certificate courses rather than degree programmes.
Second is the much stronger participation by adult students and the relatively low proportion of Maori school leavers.
This suggests to me four opportunities for future focus.
First is to encourage M�ori to staircase into higher level qualifications.
The second is to see the success of M�ori in tertiary becoming more strongly linked to employment opportunities.
The third is to ensure that the participation by adults in tertiary leads to young people developing strong expectations that they too will study at tertiary level when they leave school.
The fourth is the development of stronger research focus and capability in the tertiary sector that contributes more directly to Maori development.
The Government is working to hitch the tertiary education sector to the engine of the real economy so that it is contributing to wider New Zealand goals.
The aim is to build a system that meets the needs of all the participants, one that can focus the creative and collaborative energies of those within it. .
M�ori have taken leadership roles in the reform process, for example, helping shape the Tertiary Education Strategy - by challenging us to think about where we want the sector to be five years from now and how the sector could more effectively help meet Maori aspirations.
Many of our tertiary education institutions are already taking a more strategic approach to their research, with a growing focus on collaboration between researchers and areas that need research.
Research clusters with specific focus on broad themes of research activity are emerging. The $60m allocated to Centres of Research Excellence is accelerating and building on this positive activity with one centre focused on Maori development issues.
Looking ahead, I am optimistic that we are on course for success.
I see a large and positive increase in debate, discussion and engagement at all levels in education.
I see the system in a while, slowly perhaps, but more surely becoming more responsive to Maori students and the strength of their culture and values.
I see Maori more demanding and confident in this interaction with the system.
Armed with fresh choices, we see more M�ori youth grasping opportunities to succeed in whatever field they desire.
So how should we balance the need to keep our eyes on the distant horizon with the immediate needs of today's learners?
I am reminded of a remark I once heard Manu Bennett say to his people that it was vital that they thought where they should be 50 years from now. He also asked them to think about getting the first few steps in the journey right. He said the key was to get it right for the child born today, while tapping into the wisdom of the elders. This to me confirms the essence of being Maori and becoming global.
A thousand years after the voyagers from the Pacific made landfall on these green shores, we are navigating new pathways towards new and bright horizons.
We may be on board different craft, travelling at different speeds, catching different breezes.
But I am confident that with the energy and focus of people attending this conference, we will all end up in the right place.
This article is one of many on the Ministry of Education website.
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