Govt treat Maori kids as 2nd class citizens

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 29th, 2010 - 7 comments
Categories: education, maori party, national, racism - Tags:

Last week, we heard the Maori Party endlessly praising National for the DRIP. Yesterday, we got deathly silence as Trevor Mallard, with the help of a PPTA OIA request, revealed that the Government is giving whare kura schools only $50,000 in base operating funding compared to $130,000 that mainstream schools get. It seems that the Government is treating kids at Maori immersion schools as second-class citizens.

But not a peep from Pita Sharples, Associate Minister of Education, when Anne Tolley signed off on this policy. Not cries of outrage from the Maori Party in the House yesterday.

Except from Te Ururoa Flavell but he wasn’t concerned about Maori kids getting a bad deal. No, he was having a cry that Trevor Mallard had referred to whare kura schools as being for Maori when they’re open to any child wanting a Maori immersion education. Heck of a job, Te Ururoa.

But maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m too focused on substance, when I should be satisfied with symbols. Maybe I’m just being euro-centric in expecting parties to put delivering real results for their supporters ahead of empty grandstanding.

Or maybe the Maori Party are just sell outs.

7 comments on “Govt treat Maori kids as 2nd class citizens ”

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  1. lonelyavenger 1
    29 April 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Perhaps if you and Mallard had read the OIA release, you would have read the justification.

    The funding arrangement is an interim measure only for those kura schools expanding to wharekura schools in term 2 2010 whilst the Ministry develops new policy for funding small composite schools. The funding per student at these expanded wharekura schools is still far higher than the funding per student at your average-sized mainstream school.

    The schools are all very small (projected, including new students 45 – 103, compared to the <250 that the $130,000 funding band applied to) and expect very low numbers of students in Yrs 9 -13 (9-25).

    The Ministry has determined that $50,000 base funding is sufficient to fund the extremely small expansions this year.

    Since you’re so focuses on substance, do you think that firing $600,000 at schools that apparantly don't need it to fund their tiny expansions is a good idea?

    • Bright Red 1.1
      29 April 2010 at 1:35 pm

      The NZ PPTA seem to think it’s a big deal:

      “Last week PPTA sought under the Official Information Act a document from the minister of education that establishes a new and reduced formula for those kura kaupapa Māori (primary schools) which wish to offer secondary education and become wharekura (area schools).

      Building more schools at reduced costWhat seems to have happened is that the ministry, alarmed by the $100 million plus price tag for seven kura to be equipped, staffed and funded for specialist secondary provision decided it needed to act to reduce costs. The document reveals that these schools are now classified as area schools but are receiving only $50,000 base operations funding, not the $130,000 that other area schools usually get, a flat per student rate of $2000 per head but no funding for other aspects of operations (such as water, heat and lighting) and a severe cut-back to property entitlement.”

      http://www.ppta.org.nz/index.php/communities/president-page/1071-price-to-choose-apr2010

  2. Trevor Mallard 2
    29 April 2010 at 4:13 pm

    Looks like it is the new funding formula for all small schools to be announced in the budget. Not clear yet though. No good explanation why current formula could not have been used in the interim while new cuts designed.

  3. Fabregas4 3
    29 April 2010 at 8:27 pm

    My schools 5 Year Agreement Funding has been confirmed as $130,000 this as the government introduces a new property benchmark – the need to provide what they call MLE’s (Modern Learning Environments). I am not looking forward to trying to manage this on $26k a year when a class refurbishment costs around $40k. Another case of you must do better but without the ability to do so.

  4. Galeandra 4
    29 April 2010 at 9:16 pm

    lonelyavenger Yep , but $35 million on schools that don’t need it sure gets my corpuscles scooting even faster.
    Captcha – remembers

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