November 29, 2023
Tūroa Royal cut path for Māori education
Pioneering Māori educationalist Tūroa Kiniwe Royal has died in Auckland at the age of 88.
Mr Royal was from Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Tamatera, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Hine.
He studied education, anthropology and Maori studies at the University of Auckland and taught in secondary schools, the inspectorate and from 1978 to 1986 he was principal of Wellington High School.
He was also involved in founding Whitirea Polytechnic in Porirua and Te Wananga o Raukawa in Otaki, as well as being the founding chair of the World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature from Massey University in 2009 in acknowledgement of his commitment to Māori education over more than 50 years.
The citation said that by identifying language, culture, and community voice as determinants of successful learning, he was instrumental in building a pathway for educational inclusion.
His family say Mr Royal will be taken on Thursday to Raukawa Marae, Ōtaki, where he will lay for two nights.
On Saturday he will come home to his people of Hauraki and be returned to his ancestral home of Waimangō, north of Kaiaua, on the western shores of the Firth of Thames.
The funeral service will be at 11am on Monday December 4 after which, he will be interred in the family urupā at Waimangō next to his parents, his siblings and his tupuna.