Māori class hit by teacher shortage
A shortage of te reo teachers is being felt across Aotearoa, and there’s no quick fix, say education leaders.
New Zealand Principals’ Federation national president Dr Cherie TaylorPatel said the issue was a problem right across the country.
‘‘We’ve never had enough,’’ she said. ‘‘And now that we have a bit of a renaissance happening, with people really realising the value of te reo and te ao Māori world view, teachers who are fluent in te reo are like hens’ teeth.’’
Taylor-Patel said it wasn’t just the mainstream schools that were struggling to find teachers, it was also the kura, who were identifying people in the community and then supporting them to go to training college.
In Nelson, Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls announced in March that Māori medium classes funded by the Ministry of Education were set to begin this year.
But despite advertising extensively in social media and in print, the colleges have been unable to find any kaiako.
‘‘We’ve had one possible applicant across both schools,’’ Nelson College headmaster Richard Dykes said.
The college had hoped to have their first teacher starting on Monday , doing prep work and meeting with iwi and whānau.
‘‘It’s all on hold until we get that teacher, until we get someone we can’t launch that,’’ he said.
Dykes said his fear was that teachers were being recruited by government agencies who were ‘‘soaking them up to write the policy rather than actually getting them on the ground’’.
The Māori medium class will spend as much of the day as possible in te reo.
Dykes estimated about 30 students would likely be part of the programme, though they wouldn’t know until the class was actually able to be offered.
Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology executive director Olivia Hall said it was ‘‘definitely hard’’ to attract and retain teachers, especially as numbers in mātauranga Māori and te reo courses had grown year on year for six years.
Māori medium teacher at Nelson Intermediate School Tom Alesana (Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Koata) said the difficulty Nelson College was facing highlighted the lack of kaiako Māori, ‘‘not just in Nelson but across the country’’.
Retention was an issue ‘‘particularly for kaiako who come from outside the region, because the pull home is immense’’, Alesana said.
‘‘It’s unfortunate that they can’t find a teacher. However, the intent is there and it’s the right intent.’’
Alesana said over 90% of Māori tamariki weren’t in Māori medium education, so it was important that the education workforce had the ability to localise the curriculum and understand local histories.
Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tuia te Matangi kaihautū tari (office manager) Janis de Thierry said the kura struggled to get qualified teachers and relievers.
‘‘If a pouako (teacher) gets sick at this kura we shuffle classes and pouako around. Our relieving list is like next to non-existent – we have one reliever,’’ she said.
Taylor-Patel said time was needed for the students being taught te reo to come through school, apply to training college and then enter the system.
What could be done in the meantime was to upskill teachers who were in the system using training programmes such as Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori.
The problem with this, however, was that it was ‘‘intense’’.
‘‘Teachers are expected to do a lot of the professional learning in their own time. Would we expect teachers to do weekends in mathematics professional learning and development (PLD) and if not, why are we expecting teachers to do weekends to do te reo?
‘‘There’s a real question mark around needing to shift this into mainstream PLD.’’