Te Ahu o te Reo Māori a waste of money says minister

Adam Gifford Erica Stanford | Te Ahu o te Reo Maori a waste of money says minister

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Education Minister Erica Stanford has attacked a te reo Māori professional development programme for teachers by saying it didn’t meet standards it never claimed to be about.

She has stripped $30 million for Te Ahu o te Reo Māori and redirected it towards resources and professional development for the new structured maths curriculum.

There’s been a waiting list for Te Ahu, which was designed to normalise te reo Māori throughout the education system, so it is used every day by everyone in the classroom.

Teachers learned about local dialects, grammar and writing conventions; curriculum development; and language planning for the classroom.

Minister Stanford says an evaluation of the programme found no evidence it directly impacted progress and achievement for students.

“The $100 million we’ve spent over the last three years was 2.3 times more expensive than similar courses offered free of charge. There was anything between a 50 to 60 percent completion rate. It was not NZQA accredited, There were no qualifications gained. There was no evidence of student outcomes,” she says.

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