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They may have fallen out of political favour in Aotearoa, but across the Tasman education programmes developed for Te Wananga o Aotearoa are giving thousands of indigenous, Maori and other students a second chance.
The Maori Party’s new Hauraki-Waikato candidate, Susan Cullen, developed programmes like Mahi Ora, Kiwi Ora and Lifeworks to address the needs of students who wanted to come back into education but lacked many of the basic skills needed.
She says since stepping back from the wananga in 2006 she has been consulting with education authorities in Australia.
She says one secondary school has been set up using the Mahi Ora model.
"They call them the sofa kids; out of work, out of school, and out of home, a lot of kids who have been booted out of home and are staying on people’s sofas, and so we have got 500 of them who have all come back together to do this sort of Maori framework in Australia for their education, so the Australians say they love the Maori education framework and I’m really proud of that," Ms Cullen says.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN CULLEN CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MTc4MTg=
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