Māori Education

Ngā Tau Tuangahuru - Māori and Pacific Education Initiative 10-year longitudinal evaluation, 2015-2025

Foundation North

The Māori and Pacific Education Initiative (MPEI) was Foundation North's (previously the ASB Community Trust) flagship investment in community-based programmes and services to improve educational outcomes for Māori and Pacific children and young people. Overall these initiatives have been very successful in engaging students and their families in education, and facilitating students’ educational achievement. Students have caught up with and often surpassed the expectations of educational success set by national achievement standards.

This longitudinal study explores what happens to these students in the longer term, after they have stayed with an initiative for some time or moved on to other educational or employment opportunities. We ask whether the gains achieved by students will have a long-lasting impact upon their lives and the lives of those around them. The study is a collaborative endeavour with five of the MPEI initiatives - asking questions that are important to them, and building the capacity of community researchers through their involvement with the study. The first round of data collection will occur in 2017.

In late 2016 the study was given the name Nga Tau Tuangahuru, which translates to ‘looking beyond for ten more years’, by Foundation North Kaumatua Kevin Prime.

The first round of interviews with Māori and Pasifika families took place in 2016. The findings from this round are available as infographics. The second round of interviews with families and with children and young people was completed in 2019. Results from this round will be available in 2020.

Publications

Cram, F., Samu, T., Theodore, R. & Trotman, R. (2020). Māori whānau talk about whānau success: Findings from Round 1 of Ngā Tau Tuangahuru—the Māori and Pacific Education Initiative (MPEI) longitudinal study. Evaluation Matters—He Take Tō Te Aromatawai, 6, first-on-line.

Trotman, R., Cram, F., Samu, T., Becroft, M., Theodore, R., Trinick, T. with Pt England Primary School, Manaiakalani, Sylvia Park School, Rise UP Trust, He Puna Marama Trust, Oceania Careers Academy & High Tech Youth. Investing in ‘success’ as Māori and Pacific: The collaborative development of Ngā Tau Tuangahuru, a longitudinal study. Evaluation Matters - He Take Tō Te Aromatawai, 4, 87-100.

Māori and Pasifika Higher Education Horizons, 2014

Editors: Fiona Cram, Hazel Phillips, Pale Sauni & Clark Tuagalu

H.T. Frierson (Series Ed.), Diversity in higher education. New Milford, CT: Emerald Books. Published April 2014.

This book canvases a diverse range of writings on Māori and Pasifika participation and engagement in higher education in contemporary times within Aotearoa New Zealand. Some authors speak to the challenges Māori and Pasifika students and academics face in higher education as well as the diverse ways they have claimed spaces within the academy to rewrite history and its more standard colonial story. Other authors, drawing on traditional knowledge and practices, have reimagined and reclaimed specifically Māori higher education spaces. These spaces resist and counter an institution whose culture, knowledge systems and teaching and learning styles have historically made its Pacific location invisible. In this we are not alone as the struggles Māori and Pacific peoples face are the same kind of struggles Indigenous peoples face the world over.'

Māori Medium Initial Teacher Education Outcomes, Ministry of Education, 2012

Fiona Cram, Vivienne Kennedy, Miromiro Kelly-Hepi Te Huia and Kirimatao Paipa

The right of Indigenous people to education in their own language is upheld in many international declarations and conventions. For Māori the Treaty of Waitangi also upholds this right. Māori medium education is a key contributor to the success of Māori students, with the Ministry of Education committed to improving the performance of the education sector as a whole for Māori and supporting Māori students to achieve as Māori.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the education system and a range of work is currently underway to improve the quality of Initial Teacher Education (ITE), and to strengthen systems designed to mentor and nurture new teachers in the workplace. As part of this work Katoa Ltd has been contracted by the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) to develop two background papers related to Māori medium ITE outcomes: Graduate profile, and Effective practicum and induction experiences.

Each background paper has been developed through an iterative process involving the review of selected literature, visits and conversations with stakeholders (including Māori-medium teachers and leaders), and consultation with an expert review panel. The six key principles of Kaupapa Māori have guided the structure of each paper:

  1. Tino Rangatiratanga – The principle of self-determination

  2. Taonga Tuku Iho – The principle of cultural aspiration

  3. Ako Māori – the principle of culturally preferred pedagogy

  4. Kia Piki Ake i Ngā Raruraru o te Kāinga – the principle of socio-economic mediation

  5. Whānau – the principle of extended family structure

  6. Kaupapa – the principle of collective philosophy

Education Workforce Census, Ministry of Education, 2011

Fiona Cram

In 2004 the Ministry of Education took a census of the teacher workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2011 there were plans to repeat this census and also extend it to cover a wider, education workforce. This technical report reviewed the 2004 census for its coverage of Māori-medium teachers and its potential to cover the wider, Māori-medium education workforce. Advice is provided on five key issues that should be addressed for the next census to have adequate coverage of the Māori-medium education workforce. These issues are: Organisational culture; Disposition to teach; Pedagogical support; Spreading the (Work)Load; and Ngā Moemoea (Aspirations). Recommendations are also made about ensuring an excellent census response rate from the Māori-medium education workforce.

Te Hiringa i te Mahara - Research & Evaluation, 1997-2001

Te Hiringa i te Mahara was two year programme that aimed to reduce workload pressures and improve the professional experience of Maori secondary school teachers. The initial research and three year evaluation were undertaken by IRI.