July 11, 2021
Kura show way to beat truancy
Schools being culturally responsive and competent could be the key to addressing absenteeism by Māori students.
That’s the response of Māori education consultant Whetu Cormack to parliament’s education committee starting an inquiry into truancy.
The committee says school attendance has been dropping since 2015 across “all regions, all ethnicities, all deciles and all year levels.
Almost 40 per cent of students are not going to schools regularly.
Mr Cormack says one exception is kura Māori, and that could offer pointers to mainstream schools.
"What we've got there is we've got young people Māori who are going to kura where they can be themselves as who they are as Māori. They feel culturally connected and safe. They are working with teachers who value relationships and value them as tamariki Māori. As young people feel safe, they want to be at school, that's attendance, and that leads to high levels of engagement and motivation and then, of course, high levels of achievement," he says.
Mr Cormack says a suggestion parents should be fined if their children don’t attend school ignores the role of the education system in suppressing Māori culture.
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