Redeveloping the Strategy
By 2006, the Ministry of Education had begun the process of redeveloping the strategy. It started with an initial think piece that asked the Ministry’s iwi partners and a small group of key stakeholders to review and feed back on through a formal engagement process. The document was called Ka Hikitia: Setting Priorities for Māori Education.
The 2006 engagement process had three key aims:
- to engage with leading Māori academics, seeking their feedback on the background paper
- to discuss the ideas in Ka Hikitia: Setting Priorities for Māori Education with key stakeholders
- to introduce Ka Hikitia: Setting Priorities for Māori Education to Ministry of Education staff.
Stakeholder and staff engagement ran from October to December 2006, involving iwi partners, the PPTA Māori caucus, the Early Childhood Advisory Committee, the Schools’ Consultative Committee, Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust, NZEI Māori Caucus and Ministry staff.
Several key themes emerged from the engagement process, including:
- clear support for the strategy development process, particularly the opportunity for groups to comment and be involved in the early stages of development
- strong support for the use of the Māori potential approach as a way of shifting education outcomes for Māori and as an example of strong cross-government collaboration
- support for the conceptual framing set out in Ka Hikitia: Setting Priorities for Māori Education, with some suggestions for minor refinements.