March 06, 2013
Lack of support leaves languages languishing
Education trust Comet Auckland says the lack of official support for Te Reo Māori highlights a wider lack of support for non-English languages in Aotearoa.
Chief Executive Sue Warren says Auckland has a huge language resource from Pasifika communities, other migrants and Māori.
But with no formal support many migrant languages will disappear in a generation or so, to the detriment of their children's learning, sense of identity and economic prospects.
She says Māori should be the flagship for any language policy.
“We don't have bi-lingual signage in most places. We don’t have equal support for Māori immersion learning compared to the funding that is there for English immersion learning. So there are many examples where even Te Reo Māori doesn’t get the support that it should get, let alone Pacific languages and then the community languages. There is about 160 languages across New Zealand,” Sue Warren from Comet Auckland says.
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