by Matua Kahurangi
Just when you thought National had put an end to race-based policies and co-governance in public services, Erica Stanford’s new Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) makes you wonder if National has completely lost sight of those promises. It reads more like something from the Labour government than the party Kiwis voted in to restore some common sense.
The bill would require school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi by:
1) Achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students
2) Ensuring that school policies and teaching reflect local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori and te ao Māori
3) Taking all reasonable steps to make teaching available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori
This is just more race-based lawmaking that creates special treatment instead of equal treatment. It forces schools to reshape everything through one cultural lens, regardless of whether it fits the needs or values of their communities.
Māori students deserve the best possible education, like every other child in this country. This bill doesn’t improve literacy, numeracy or classroom outcomes for all learners. It focuses on identity and ideology rather than real results. Since when did schools become vehicles for political and cultural indoctrination?
If Labour had introduced this exact wording, National would be calling it radical. Yet here we are, watching a National minister pushing it through Parliament. No wonder Hobson’s Pledge called Erica Stanford the wokest member of the National Party. They were right.
It’s especially troubling when you remember the coalition agreements National signed with ACT and New Zealand First. Both parties made it clear they wanted an end to race-based public services. That means dropping co-governance and stopping legislation that divides people along ethnic lines. So why is this bill being pushed through without any serious challenge?
The clause about achieving “equitable outcomes” for Māori students is particularly vague and problematic. Who decides what is equitable? And what happens when those outcomes aren’t met? Will schools be punished or labelled as culturally unsafe? It puts political pressure on schools to prioritise race over performance.
What about the everyday Kiwi parents who just want their kids to learn to read, write, and do basic maths properly? Are they now going to see classroom time being diverted into meeting cultural targets instead of lifting academic standards?
Click to be taken to Hobson’s Pledge website and see what they have to say about it.
Erica Stanford is supposed to be the Minister of Education. Her job is to fix the broken parts of our education system, not make it more complex and more divided. She needs to listen to the public, not pander to the loudest ideological voices.
This bill is not what voters signed up for. It’s out of step with the country and out of touch with reality
Matua Kahurangi is just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes. He blogs on https://matuakahurangi.com/ where this article was sourced.
This is appalling and racially discriminating against all other non Maori groups . Besides having one religion dominating in our secular education system.
Where is the evidence that pandering to a group’ s cultural and religious beliefs improves their academic status? There is none and it won’t improve Maori outcomes.
More Maori are underachieving academically, in prison and on welfare because of a number of factors.
These include the breakdown of families and single parent homes, actually promoted by current welfare policies and licentiousness leading to consumption of drugs and alcohol and wrong life decisions. Then there is the consumption of junk food , more prevalent in low decile areas because of more outlets.
But a major factor for me is our schooling which lacks discipline , work ethic ,knowledge content, morality and teaching methods that are effective . Higher economic status parents, including Maori homes , can compensate for this with home resources, or outside private tutoring.
Prison inmates have much higher levels of illiteracy, hyperactivity , suffer fetal alcohol syndrome , poor nutrition as well as dysfunctional upbringings.
Maori in the past . were achieving much better when we still had traditional values and an excellent education system for everyone . We certainly did not have the longest tail of academic underachievement as we have now. Instead mid-last century we had the highest scores internationally in comprehension literacy because of its basis in phonics.