Flavell Te Ururoa: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7439] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Happy New Year to you and to everyone else. Ka nui te mihi ki a tatou. 
If we were to apply National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) standards to the education system the results would be as follows—Mr Peachey will appreciate this—“Unit Standard 756/3: Has demonstrated an ongoing ability to address the under-achievement of Maori students. Grade: Not achieved—no evidence.” The 1960 Hunn report revealed the failure of the Department of Education to provide equal educational opportunity for Maori. In 2006 the UN special rapporteur described the “underlying institutional and structural discrimination that Maori have long suffered.” recommending an urgent need for more resourcing in Maori education. 
Just for members’ benefit “Unit Standard 978/2” reads: “Demonstrates an ability to provide robust analysis of Current Maori Educational Under-Achievement. Grade: Achieved with merit.” Last year the 2005 Education Review Office annual report identified some 20 percent of students currently not succeeding in our education system. It stated that 53 percent of Maori boys leave school with no qualifications compared to 20 percent of Pakeha boys—awesome! School-leaver qualification figures show that only 9 percent of the Maori boys who left school in 2005 had university entrance. Only 47 percent of Maori school-leavers finished school with qualifications higher than NCEA level 1 compared to a massive 74 percent of European and 87 percent of Asian school-leavers. Such results are vividly demonstrated in recent league tables in which New Zealand earned the second-highest level of relative educational inequality across the entire OECD. The scoreboard is profoundly affected by socio-economic status and ethnicity. 
Here is another one: “Unit Standard 478/2: Demonstrates an ability to engage all students fully in the Education System. Grade: Not achieved with merit.” Today the Unicef report revealed that we are the lowest ranked out of 25 OECD countries for actually having kids in school between the ages of 15 and 19. The 2006 report on truancy highlights that truancy rates have climbed since 2004. The truancy rate for Maori is now double that of Asian and European rates. We are talking of a 15 percent absence rate for Maori compared to a 10 percent absence rate for Europeans. 
Here is one more: “Unit Standard 945/2: Has shown willingness to be responsive to Maori demands for education by acting on negative statistics to address Maori under-achievement. Grade: Not achieved.” The quest to learn for Maori children is being stifled by an arbitrary close-off policy designed to keep the cap on numbers of schools being established as kura kaupapa Maori. The door has also slammed shut for kohanga reo. We are told that 20 hours of free early childhood education does not exist for kohanga reo because despite the fact that the whakapakari training package has been approved as a recognised New Zealand Qualifications Authority qualification that qualification is not recognised for the 20 hours’ free early childhood education policy. 
Yet evaluations of Maori-medium education prove that outcomes in community and whanau engagement are optimistic. Achievement outcomes are also positive. In 2005 Maori students in year 11 who were attending schools in which the medium was Maori had a higher rate of attaining NCEA qualifications than did Maori in other schools. 
As my colleague Tariana Turia referenced in her speech earlier the strategy is one of containment—a long-term social experiment. Well the guinea pig is not an indigenous species to this land and we will no longer accept being subjects for someone else’s gain. If we are truly to be responsive why when the Education Amendment Bill came to this House did the Maori members of Labour not speak out about the changes that would impact on Te Runanganui o nga Kura Kaupapa Maori? So what is the overall assessment? “Grade: Not achieved.” 
There are strategies and there are excellent exemplars and mentors that can make a difference. The challenge for the Government is to step up to the mark. There is also a raft of pilot programmes that do not succeed. The Maori Party believes that for our future to be bright we must develop and advance kaupapa Maori education options. If the State is unable to react with answers that have long been discussed by Maori educators and whanau then perhaps it is time for the State to admit defeat. But there is a willingness to ensure and a vested interest in ensuring that the outcomes are far better than what this report card could ever achieve. Kei roto ingaringaringa o Te Ao Maori te hiahia te kaha kia tae atu ai Te Ao Maori ki nga taumata o te matauranga. Whakahokia te mana ki Te Ao Maori. 
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The desire and capability for Maori to achieve in education is in Maoridom’s hands. Give that autonomy back to Maoridom. 
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