July 05, 2022
Confidence needed before te reo tipping point
Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis says a lot more groundwork is needed before the country needs to discuss making te reo Māori a compulsory subject.
He says he doesn’t want to see efforts to increase the use of te reo Maāri put at risk by the political backlash he believes Opposition parties would whip up to a curriculum change.
Meanwhile more than 6000 teachers have already gone through the professional development programme Te Ahu o te Reo Māori.
“About 80 percent of them are non-Māori and what we are doing is encouraging people from the levels they are at now to start integrating te reo Māori into their daily programmes. They start off where they are a but we try to build up their competency and their confidence to use te reo Māori. If it was a core subject right now we wouldn’t have the Kaiako with the skills, with the ability, with the confidence to actually teach te reo,” Mr Davis says.
He believes there will eventually come a tipping point, but in the meantime he is also trying to triple the number of taitamariki going through Māori medium education.