4 Goal One - to Live as Maori

The Hui Taumata Mätauranga had to consider, quite early, what the broad goals of Mäori education might be. A proposed starting point was that education should be consistent with the goal of enabling Mäori to live as Mäori. That meant being able to have access to te ao Mäori, the Mäori world - access to language, culture, marae, resources such as land, tikanga, whänau, kaimoana. To the extent that the purpose of education is to prepare people for participation in society, it needs to remembered that preparation for participation in Mäori society is also required. If after twelve or so years of formal education a Mäori youth were totally unprepared to interact within te ao Mäori, then no matter what else had been learned, education would have been incomplete. While it would be unreasonable, and unwise, to expect that the education sector should be the sole determinant of access into the Mäori world, - indeed it could be argued that access to te ao Mäori is not the business of the State since it sits squarely with whänau and hapü - it is equally unreasonable to assume that the education sector should ignore the meaning of being Mäori and not accept some obligation to prepare students for active lives within Mäori society, not simply to learn about Mäori but to live as Mäori.. Being Mäori is a Mäori reality. Education should be as much about that reality as it is about literacy and numeracy. In short being able to live as Mäori, imposes some responsibilities upon the education system to contribute towards the realisation of that broad goal.