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The head of Te Kura Hourua O Whangarei Terenga Paraoa says critics need to accept that partnership schools are an experiment aimed at improving education.
Nathan Matthews’ school is facing opposition from teacher unions who are urging their members in other Whangarei schools not to give any support.
Terenga Paraoa, which draws on the spirit of the Maori Battalion to encourage pride and discipline among its students, opened this week.
Dr Matthews says each partnership school needs to be taken on its own merits.
"A lot of these schools will have little in common so it’s not like having kura kaupapa that are founded on Te Aho Matua, we are partnership schools due to the funding model, but how that is enacted in our everyday operation is entirely different, so I would challenge anyone to come in here and look at our model and say what we are trying to do here isn’t right and from a social justice perspective isn’t something that needs to happen, but I can’t speak for the other schools but there would certainly be potential for different things to happen in different schools," he says.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH NATHAN MATTHEWS CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MTU0NzE=
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