August 19, 2020
Low expectations leads to low results for rangatahi Māori
A Māori education advocacy group says school streaming are holding rangatahi back.
Tokona Te Raki worked with Waikato-Tainui, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, The Southern Initiative and economic research group BERL to track the progress of over 70,000 rangatahi from education to employment.
Executive director Eruera Tarena says schools are continuing to stream Māori children into low expectation classes, limiting their employment prospects.
He Awa Ara Rau: A Journey of Many Paths report found a third of tauira Māori skip Year 11 algebra, almost 20 percent leave school with no qualification and only 14 percent go on to complete a degree.
He says putting rangatahi into low level streams disengages them from study.
"When rangatahi were streamed into those lower level foundation maths and science programmes they were calling them kāpiti, the cabbage. What it was for them was a signal 'the teacher thinks I am dumb so therefore I must be dumb so I am going to act dumb and play up in class,' which results in more Māori being stood down, more Māori being expelled from our kura," Dr Tarena says.
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