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The head of a roopu trying to reopen St Stephen’s College says Māori boarding schools are needed to build future generations of Māori leadership.
The TIPENE Reopening Committee has launched a website where families can register their interest in sending their boys to a proposed new school.
Chair Joe Tipene says the committee is talking to the Queen Victoria and St Stephen’s Trust Board about basing it on the site at Bombay in south Auckland, though not necessarily using the same buildings as the school which closed two decades ago.
He says boys from that school are now leading their iwi, such as Selwyn Parata in Ngāti Porou and Pita Tipene in Ngāti Hine.
"It’ll take us two to three generations to get that sort of leadership back and if we look at the statistics around Māori boys, it's not very good. The education system in terms of catering for young Māori boys, in terms of growing leaders is not very good and we think we can put in a model that will build that leadership back into our society," Mr Harawira says.
The committee is still confident it can meet its target of having a school for Māori boys opened by 2020
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