An online judicial review into urgent Waitangi Tribunal claims over the Crown’s alleged breach of its Kura Kaupapa Māori obligations is now underway.
One of the urgent claims (Wai 1718) was filed on October 2021 by lead claimant and te reo Māori advocate, Dr Cathy Dewes of Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori.
It was made on behalf of over 60 kura and 6500 students nationwide, and alleges the Crown has breached the treaty in its obligations to Kura Kaupapa.
The claim was made on behalf of over 60 kura and 6500 students nationwide. (Source: 1News)
Counsel on behalf of claimants on Thursday said the Ministry of Education and the Crown hadn't honoured the principles by which kura kaupapa Māori should be run.
They're instead calling for a by Māori for Māori approach - an autonomous Māori education authority.
Dewes in a statement the review is “a step closer to being able to put on record the injustices that Kura Kaupapa Māori have suffered at the hands of successive Governments over the last 35 years.
“This is about the right of tamariki Māori to grow and develop as Māori through a Kaupapa Māori schooling option.”
A key part of the tribunal claim is that Te Aho Matua - the Māori philosophical framework developed in the 1980s - has not been upheld by the Ministry of Education.
It comes as a “revamp” of the Māori medium and Kaupapa Māori pathways programme was announced in February by Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis.
Davis said legislation would likely be introduced in early 2023, aimed at seeing 30% of Māori learners participating in Kaupapa Māori/Māori medium education by 2040.
At the time, he said work would be overseen by an independent Māori education panel named Te Pae Roa.
But four key Kura Kaupapa groups were missing from the panel's announcement, including Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori.
They were involved in earlier discussions with the Government on the education pathway. But Davis said talks concluded at the end of 2021 when they declined to participate any further.
In a joint statement in February, the four organisations - operating as a collective called Te Matakahuki for this particular kaupapa - said it couldn't comfortably work alongside an education system which had continued to fail Māori.
"Te Matakahuki absolutely support the investment into Māori learners in the mainstream education system, our kaupapa in part was borne from families establishing Māori education institutes as a response to the lack of confidence in that very system.
"We however will not accept the homogenising of our Kaupapa Māori institutes by treating both the Māori medium within mainstream education and Te Matakahuki pathways unilaterally. The contexts are very different."
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