Māori enjoying education success as Māori

The plan has two main areas of focus:

• Culture Counts – knowing, respecting and valuing Māori students, where they come from and building on what they bring with them.
• Productive Partnerships – Māori students, whānau, hapū, iwi and educators sharing knowledge and expertise with each other to produce better mutual outcomes.

Boards have an important role to play. The school planning and reporting process places a strong emphasis on community consultation and involvement in the school and on delivery of education. In your role as a board member you will be required to:

• consult with your local Māori community when preparing or amending your school’s charter
• include in your school charter aims that reflect the unique position of Māori culture
• monitor and report on Māori student achievement.

Key questions that every board member should be asking are:

• How are our Māori students doing?
• How do we know?
• What can we do to make a difference for Māori students?

The New Zealand Curriculum Te Marautanga o Aotearoa provides further opportunities to realise this by enabling schools to decide much of the content of, and concepts, for learning.

Iwi partnerships

The Ministry has established education partnership relationships with iwi and Māori education organisations to facilitate working together to meet a set of shared outcomes. Your local Ministry office will be able to provide you with more information about iwi relationships, and iwi/Ministry initiatives.

Visit the Education Counts theme page on Māori education including the latest data on the targets from the Ka Hikitia – Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008-2012. This page is updated as new data is made available.