Launch of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa Maori curriculum
EducationToday is another milestone in New Zealand’s education system and I’m particularly proud to be here to help launch Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.
This curriculum is world-leading because it is not just a simple translation of an English curriculum but one that is designed from a Maori perspective and that can sit alongside the New Zealand curriculum.
The document we are releasing today will guide our approach to teaching in te reo Maori in the 21st century.
It is an empowering document – it isn’t prescriptive. It puts power in the hands of schools and communities. Te Marautanga o Aotearoa is designed to support schools and teachers to be more effective, to help them design a school curriculum that is relevant and engaging for students.
It covers the whole spectrum of school education, from making sure students have strong foundations for learning so they can achieve the levels of academic excellence we want for all our young people to instilling a lifelong love of learning.
This draft curriculum empowers teachers and schools to make decisions about how to implement the curriculum – and schools like Te Kura Maori o Porirua will benefit immensely. It will allow you to ensure your programmes are relevant to students and relevant to the globalised technological world we now live in.
For example, it will let you be innovative like Te Kura Kaupapa Mäori o Mana Tamariki, with students learning alongside students from other schools by videoconferencing.
And Te Marautanga o Aotearoa emphasises one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve educational success for our young people – schools working with communities; schools working with iwi, hapû and whânau.
Here at Te Kura Mâori o Porirua, you’ve got an open door policy for whânau. They can come and visit a class, or stop in for a cup of tea and a chat in the staff room. And I understand that they do. They’re involved with the development of curriculum policy. This builds the community which helps make your school so successful.
The starting point for implementation of this new curriculum for schools will be the development of a graduate profile. From this profile, schools will work out a curriculum to achieve that.
When I found out we were coming here to Te Kura Mâori o Porirua, I looked at your school’s website. And with a little help from Parekura to translate, I found out about your school and your graduate profile.
Here, your profile says: “Our graduates will be confident, articulate speakers and writers of Te Reo Mâori and English. They will be leaders – confident in Mâori and non-Mâori settings both nationally and internationally. They will be motivated learners with the skills and abilities to pursue their own self-determined pathways towards successfully following their passions.”
To me that’s a great statement of what we want from a school; and what this curriculum has been designed to support.
This Ministry is going to be consulting on this draft Te Marautanga o Aotearoa until the end of term one and there will be a series of regional workshops to gain feedback on it. There are copies of it here, and copies of it on the Ministry’s website. We want to know what you think; we want to know what principals, boards and teachers think; we want to know what whânau and members of the community think.
In partnership with the English medium curriculum, this document outlines how schools can fulfil youth potential and equip young New Zealanders with the skills they need in the 21st century.
So it gives us great pleasure to launch this draft Mâori medium curriculum – Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.