August 06, 2018
Character schools recipe for failure
An advocate for kura hourua says turning them into designated character schools is a recipe for failure.
Pem Bird, tumuaki of Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tawhiuau has joined other prominent Māori in a claim to the Waitangi Tribuanl against the scrapping of the Act-National-Māori Party Government’s experiment with publicly-funded private schools.
Most of the kura hourua are on track to become designated character schools in the state system, and two have applied to become integrated schools.
Mr Bird says the kura hourua model delivered engagement with whanau, academic achievement, and full attendance with no truancy.
He says as the first person to set up a designated character school in 2000, he prefers kura hourua.
"The accountability isn’t the same. It's an interventionist model with the ministry telling you how high you can jump, produce a charter every year, set your goals every year. If schools fail, guess what, they get another chance. You can set your achievement targets, fail again, get another chance," Mr Bird says.
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