Parties at odds over te reo bid

The Maori Party has slammed Labour’s updated te reo Maori in schools policy.

Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis has released an updated te reo plan following criticism Labour wasn’t going far enough. By 2025, all early childhood education (ECE) centres, primary schools and intermediates would have te reo Maori integrated into their curriculums.

Davis said Labour would also make sure every high school student had the opportunity to choose te reo as a subject by 2025.

Along with this comes a promise to offer te reo lessons to all ECE, primary and intermediate teachers.

‘‘The survival and future of te reo Maori as a thriving language is a core value for Labour,’’ Davis said.

But Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox said the policy was a ‘‘waste of space’’. She said Labour’s te reo policy wasn’t much better than National’s plan to invest $160 million to give all primary school children the opportunity to learn a second language, if they chose.

They could choose from at least 10 priority languages, likely including Mandarin, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean, along with te reo and New Zealand Sign Language. It was about more than the language; te reo was the ‘‘window through which we learn about the Maori world’’, Fox said.

The Greens are promising compulsory te reo Maori taught in all schools by 2030.

Leader Jacinda Ardern said at this stage there were no plans to make te reo compulsory. ‘‘We want it to be universally available. We haven’t even reached that point in New Zealand ...

‘‘You just couldn’t [make it compulsory] at the moment, we don’t have the teachers or workforce to do it.’’