Katene Rahui: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Katene Rahui: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2447] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Less than 2 months ago the latest education report to hit the news gave rise to two shocking but unsurprising facts. The first was that nearly 40 percent of Maori students left school before turning 17 a whole 10 percentage points more than the national average. The second was that most Maori students—56 percent—leave school before completing the second level of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement compared with 34 per cent of all learners. That is a gap of 22 percentage points. Those facts are shocking because they reflect high levels of disengagement and a subsequent impact of low achievement and unsurprising because well tell us something new. 
Nga Haeata Matauranga 
 the annual report on Maori education of 2007-08 puts into print ideas that should be well known to all members of this House by showing a level of systemic dysfunction that no one can ignore. Yet when we turn to the 2007-08 financial review of the Ministry of Education it appears that the dysfunction continues.  
Nga Haeata Matauranga  
revealed that Maori learners are three times more likely to be stood down suspended excluded or expelled than their Pakeha peers and are a massive four times more likely to be frequent truants. 
The section on truancy in this financial review then tells us “the most recent attendance survey undertaken was in 2006—a survey had been planned for 2008 but was not carried out as deficiencies that had affected the 2006 survey had not yet been addressed.” That is shocking. There were 2 whole years to address the deficiencies and the small matter of whether we are talking about 30000 or 3000 children missing from school. Is that not something that the Ministry of Education would want to get right? All studies show consistently that students who are truant not only miss out on school work and have their educational achievement affected but also run the increased risk of becoming alienated from the educational system and of dropping out of school. 
In the ministry’s own research officials point to data from the Smithfield project which revealed that student attendance during year 11 was one of the most significant variables affecting student achievement in senior school. If that is not bad enough longitudinal studies of Christchurch and Dunedin children from my electorate of Te Tai Tonga produced evidence that truancy was a strong predictor of violence later in life and predictive of delinquency substance abuse suicidal risk and unemployment. 
 The Ministry of Education’s performance on truancy fails to provide me with the confidence that it is truly committed to addressing the measures of participation such as retention early leaving exemptions suspensions expulsions exclusions and truancy. We in the Maori Party really want to see that happening today. However one bright moment in the 2007-08 review of the ministry was the brief section on Te Kotahitanga. The Education and Science Committee described this project as being aimed at addressing under-achievement in Maori students in mainstream schools. I would however like to point out the obvious: although under-achievement—and for that matter truancy rates—reports on the performance and situation of individual students the failure we are observing is a failure of the education sector to succeed in actively engaging all of its learners. Without engagement achievement will not follow. 
We must do better as a nation to confront the poor performance of schools in engaging and retaining Maori students. Te Kotahitanga is one of the projects that we hope will make the difference—and we know the influence of the Hon Pita Sharples as an Associate Minister of Education will be particularly important in revitalising the focus on Maori achievement. And a critical part of making the difference is in the quality of staff that we have to actively engage with whanau hapu and iwi in the improvement of outcomes for Maori students. 
Last Friday I had a fantastic morning with the Maori students at Aranui High School in Christchurch which showed me that our young people succeed when the programmes are tailored to their needs and when it actually matters to the school that the learning is both meaningful and relevant.