Sharples Pita: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sharples Pita: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7154. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I would like to offer some light relief to the debaters in the House this time and talk about something that everybody in the House supports. I am talking about our educational pathways for Maori students. We are very pleased to announce that with the help of the Hon Hekia Parata we have established leadership scholarships for students to attend Maori boarding schools. These are the Tutahi schools. These are the schools that have for years produced Maori leaders—even well known parliamentary leaders here. We have established these scholarships called Puawaitanga which means to grow and develop and flourish—hence the name Puawaitanga. These scholarships will allow 15 scholarships at any one time at each of the six Maori boarding schools. A student would take it and when that student finishes the scholarship becomes available for someone else to take it through their years. 
What is so different about these is that they are awarded for scholarship and leadership skills academic possibilities cultural strengths sporting skills. This is in contrast to many of the scholarships that exist for Maori schools at this time which are for people who are hard to reach or need relocating or something like that. It is really exciting that each school will get 15 leading pupils who can go through the school. 
The schools are Hato Paora College Hato Petera College Hukarere Girls’ College Turakina Maori Girls College St Joseph’s Maori Girls’ College and of course Te Aute College. There are strong ties to Maori leadership from these schools. You might remember the Young Maori Party of Sir Apirana Ngata Sir Peter Buck Maui Pomare Timi Kara—all those “sirs” who came through the Young Maori Party and made great advances for Maori at the turn of the 19th century. It comes right down even today to people like Shane Jones Te Ururoa Flavell Hone Harawira and so on. But the same schools have produced leaders Dame Whina Cooper Dame June Mariu Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi; singers like the current Maisey Rika and Hinewehi Mohi; and artists like Ralph Hotere Para Matchitt and so on. So they do contribute. Also All Blacks like George Skudder Buff Milner Kent Lambert Walter Little our Piri Weepu and Dallas Seymour. 
Heaps of people have come through these schools and it is because they foster pride in being Maori. That is perhaps the most important thing. Although we have also created kura kaupapa Maori these schools are not in opposition. They sit alongside and they offer choice to parents. For some the boarding school environment can foster support and opportunities to pursue their education in that way whereas kura kaupapa Maori are mainly day schools and people go there for the Maori option to talk Maori and learn in Maori as they go. So I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping these schools alive and keeping them going. St. Stephen’s College has closed and Queen Victoria School has closed but there is a possibility of reopening them and people are talking that way. 
I went to an international indigenous conference in Calgary a few years ago and there were no fewer than 30 ex-students from these schools—Maori students—at that international conference in Calgary. Those were the ones who went there independently. That is how common the graduates are in the leadership in Maoridom. 
So it is a really good-news story and I am really happy that I am able to talk to it at this time. It is about always giving Maori students the opportunity to excel providing the environment and the opportunity for them. The reason the school rolls are down now is largely due to the state of the economy at this time in the world and the hardship that is on a lot of families. I note that Wanganui Collegiate School the second-oldest school in New Zealand along with Te Aute College—formed by the same Act of Parliament—has fallen into trouble too and the Government has helped to bail that school out and keep it going. And it is important to have all choices available to us. So thank you. I thought it was a good-news story. Now everyone can get going and start yelling at each other again. Kia ora.