13 Pathways for Māori Education - Collaborative Pathways

Given the broad goals of education it is unlikely that a single mechanism will provide all the answers for all children or even for one child. A third pathway is concerned more with collaborative effort than a solo effort. The collaboration might be between a Kura Kaupapa and an intermediate school (e.g. for sport and recreation), or between a wānanga and a university, or even off shore between a Māori department in a High School and the World College in Vancouver, or between a whare kura and the Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu. Institutional loyalty is a value worth preaching; but institutional solitude may not be in the longer term interests of students or whänau. In some ways the collaborative pathway seeks to create a total picture out of several parts. It may well count against the sole objective of Māori language revitalisation, and it could be costly, but if excellent outcomes benchmarked against the best in the world are the aim, then increasingly collaboration of effort within and outside New Zealand will become an integral part of education.

Collaborative pathways also imply cooperation between Māori and the State in planning and providing educational policies and programmes. The Hui Taumata Matauranga was a step towards collaboration in so far as the Ministry of Education and Ngāti Tuwharetoa worked together to bring it about and have since worked to address the recommendations. But collaboration needs to be distinguished from a take-over bid or the exploitation of one group over another. It can only bring positive results if it is associated with a genuine and mutual respect for the autonomy and integrity of the other.

While there will be some pressure to compare these three pathways and prioritise them, one over the other, all three need to be recognised, since, given the diversity of Māori, and the resource limitations, all three are necessary. Moreover it is likely that quality educational leadership in the future will not be found among those who adopt an institutional approach to education or whose energies are committed to guarding the pa, so much as among those who go between the pathways and engage the overlap or the gaps. The strength may lie in the relationships that exist between the pathways.