September 23, 2013
Kura hourua undermine kura kaupapa – PPTA
The Post Primary Teachers Association says charter schools will undermine the work being done for Maori education by kura kaupapa and other innovations within the public education system.
The Government is selling its partnership school model as the solution to Maori educational under-achievement.
Two of the five initial schools are targeted at Maori secondary students in Whangarei and Whangaruru.
Association president Angela Roberts says it’s an excuse to open up the education system to privatisation and a slap in the face for Maori educators.
"Those people that have already put a massive commitment into providing valid alternatives, kura kaupapa, they should be supported to continue with the massive work they have been doing with those kids. So what they’re doing is going ‘We don’t like that idea, we’re not going to support you any more, we’re going to set up something else.’ And that something else is not accountable like those other schools are," she says.
Ms Roberts says the partnership or charter schools will be run by closed trusts rather than by the community boards that oversee publicly-funded schools.
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