Education: of the pakeha by the pakeha for the pakeha

Ka whakaakona ngaa taitamariki o Te Whanau a Apanui D.H.S. i te reo Maori e Roka Paora.

Firstly because of the irrelevance of the Pakeha cultural background to Maori and non-Maori Polynesians, it is important to recognise that suggestions about education made by any Pakeha group must necessarily be irrelevant to Polynesian education. Such suggestions would only be further examples of Pakehas deciding what is good for Maori and non-Maori Polynesians.

The statistics of "Maori and non-Maori Polynesian educational failure" are well known: but rather than seeing Maori and non-Maori Polynesian children as the problem, it is time for us Pakehas to recognise that we are the problem. These statistics reveal symptoms of a racist society and a racist education system.

It is racist because it was created by Pakehas for Pakehas without consideration for other cultures. The Maori people were conquered by the Pakehas, and a European-style education system was imposed on them. The education system was modelled on the British education system with minimal concessions to the culture of the Maori population (the language of instruction was compulsorily English), and since then the development of the system has merely reflected the development of Western education in other countries. In this tradition, the latest Education Act (1964) was drawn up by Pakehas and enacted by a Pakeha Parliament.

The evidence indicates that the education system is racist still, e.g. Pakehas monopolise the positions of power and decision-making — Pakehas decide what is to be taught, design the schools, write the textbooks, choose the teachers and decide the standards by which children and young people are to be measured and classified.

According to the 1966 census, Maoris (as defined in the census i.e. half Maori ancestry or more) made up 7.5% of the total population, but in the categories of Government Administrative and Executive officials, other than MPs (i.e. mainly, administrative officers of the public service, ambassadors and town clerks) out of a total of 1498 there were only five Maoris, i.e. 0.3% of the total; and there were only 934 Maori teachers (including training college students) out of a total of 34,658, or 2.7% of the total. There is nothing to suggest that there has been any significant improvement in these figures since that census.

The Wellington Action Group of the Race Relations Council managed to obtain the following figures in a questionnaire on Maori and non-Maori Polynesian participation in state and private secondary schools in the central region in 1973.

In addition to this, all of the 25 positions listed in the EDC Working Party Report on Organisation and Administration as making up the Professional Staff of the "Head Office" of the Department of Education are held by Pakehas.

The EDC itself is an example of this institutional racism: a few Maori representatives are scattered among the committees, where their voice is outweighed and they can be outvoted: there are no representatives of other Polynesian and non-white groups in the organising committees and working parties at all. You, the Education Development Conference Steering Committee, who have the responsibility of amalgamating the regional public seminar report and other submissions for presentation to the Minister of Education, have one Maori member; but the EDC Secretariat and the EDC Executive Committee who are actually running the conference, are all Pakehas.

The seven members of the Working Party on Organisation and Administration of Education, which was clearly concerned with the structure of power and decision-making in the education system, were all Pakehas.

The Working Party on Aims and Objectives had one Maori member out of eleven.

The Working Party on Improving Learning and Teaching had one Maori member out of 22.

The only significant Maori representation was in a study group on Maori education which was set up by the Working Party on improving Learning and Teaching, but their excellent report was whitewashed in the Working Party's report. As far as we can ascertain, there was no Maori or non-Maori Polynesians in any of the other seven special study groups of this working party (secondary education, assessment, research, educational technology, libraries, special education, guidance and counselling).

Regional committees, set up by Departments of Continuing Education for the Conference executive committee, are responsible for the regional seminars, and report to the EDC steering committee. The only Regional committees on which information was made available to us were Auckland and Christchurch — the Auckland committee has one Maori member out of nine, the Christchurch committee one out of seventeen.

That is, 75.4% of Maori pupils left school without even School Certificate passes, compared with 34,3% of non-Maoris.

The examinations on which these figures are based, and the curricula and syllabuses on which the examinations are based, have been designed largely by mono-cultural Pakehas. White children have a head start because page 9 they are dealing with language, interests, values, assumptions and goals which are familiar to them from their home and social environment, but which are often quite foreign to Maori and non-Maori Polynesian children. Also, because they are ignorant of Maori and non-Maori Polynesian cultures, the educationists cannot know how to remove this bias. Further, why should Maori and non-Maori Polynesian parents share the educational goals of Pakeha parents and Pakeha educationists? The NZ Maori Council stales, in submissions to the Minister of Education, May 1973: "Maoris have an ambivalent attitude to education. It is desired as a means of improving one's life chances but feared for its alienating effect on the individual. Maoris are afraid of losing their children to a mono-cultural Pakeha world."

But, worse than just being disadvantaged by the narrow ethnocentrism of the education system. Maori and non-Maori Polynesian children are actively alienated by it, as indicated in the previous quotation. The system tends to carry on as if these children did not exist. Children are still being taught that NZ was "discovered" by Abel Tasman. This one statement tells children a good deal: it tells them that Maoris don't count in history; Europeans make history, not Maoris. It undermines the historical heritage of the Maori, especially the highly important migration, Few children have the opportunity to learn anything of the Maori language or culture, but may have the "opportunity" to learn a second European language such as French, German or Latin. Not all examples of educational racism are as blatant as these. However, it seems to be a basic assumption on the part of Pakehas that Pakeha culture is naturally superior to all other cultures. This attitude is common to many cultures, but becomes especially dangerous when one ethnic group has control of a major means (i.e. education) of transmitting culture from generation to generation.

Furthermore, most teachers are Pakehas, ignorant of Maori and non-Maori Polynesian cultures. They receive no training to cope with cultural differences among their pupils. Then there is outright personal prejudice and discrimination (much more prevalent in NZ than is usually admitted — see the studies of Vaughan. NZ's supposed harmonious race relations are simply a myth created by Pakehas to divert attention from this attitude and from the basic fact that the Maori people were conquered by them.)

These factors contribute, for example, to the high proportion of Maori and non-Maori Polynesian children who are suspended or expelled. (Note that expulsion is a typically Pakeha punitive reaction.)

Entry into all but the lowest positions in the institutions of our society, is determined by standards established by the Pakeha heads of those institutions, which are usually dependent on gaining qualifications through the education system. Because comparatively few Maori and non-Maori Polynesians gain these qualifications, the Pakeha domination of these institutions is perpetuated with little fuss.

Hence the importance of overhauling the education system in order that Maori and non-Maori Polynesians and other ethnic minorities have an effective say in its running. In particular, the next generation of teachers comes from those who have passed through the education system, to the required level. Hence the predominance of mono-cultural Pakeha teachers. The NZ Maori Council submissions (referred to earlier) note with alarm that since the entry requirements of Auckland Teachers College have been raised, the number of Maori students has plunged, with only one graduating, and none gaining entry last year.

The case of the course for training native speakers of Maori to be teachers of Maori also shows reason for alarm. Despite assurances from the Minister of Education to Nga Tamatoa and other Maori representatives that the sole criterion for this new course would be fluency in Maori, the department concentrated on certificates and university passes. (See Nga Tamatoa submissions: "Te Reo Maori: not if the Education Department has its way": to the Auckland Multi-Cultural Education Seminar of the EDC, reprinted in Salient, April 3.)

But the institution may still resort to discrimination in the case of Maoris and non-Maori Polynesians who have managed to gain the desired qualifications (e.g. cases in Recommendation 4 of the NZ Maori Council submissions). This points to the need for Maori and non-Maori Polynesians to have meaningful participation in the selection processes of the Education Department.

Surely, however, it is not necessary to document rigorously the process by which the education system fails Maori and non-Maori Polynesian children, in order to reveal the basic injustice of only one group making all the decisions and setting the standards.

We have no intention of putting forward schemes for making education more relevant to Maori and non-Maori Polynesian people; that would be just another case of Pakehas deciding what is good for Maori and non-Maori Polynesians. What is required is Maori and non-Maori Polynesians sharing the power and having an equal say in decision making. This means that decisions must be made by a consensus that includes representative opinion of all ethnic groups, rather than the present "democratic" system, which is unsatisfactory because even if Maori and non-Maori Polynesians were represented proportionally, they could be outvoted at any time and effectively silenced.

We support the specific demands of Maori and non-Maori Polynesian groups for steps towards a truly multicultural education system. Particularly we support the teaching of Maori in all schools.

Tena Koutou