Erica Stanford's Pro-Colonisation Advisor

Yesterday, news came that the Ministry of Education stopped publishing ‘About the Marae’, ostensibly because there were “too many Māori words” embedded within the book.

The Ministry’s statement suggested the volume of Te Reo Māori words might be too confusing for kids (6 as opposed to 3, the statement notes).

In my view, this severely underestimates children, and also does a disservice, given children are enriched by culture and language immersion.

Let’s look at a few more pages of the book -

Te Akatea, the Māori Principals' Association was understandably enraged.

And Aotearoa Education Collective’s, Lynda Knight was perplexed, stating:

"The Māori words that are in the book are all very common words heard in New Zealand everyday life and our kids should know them.

“They're words like karanga, wharenui, koro, hongi and karakia and kai. So I struggle to actually understand why they would be too hard for children to read when they're part of their lived experience anyway."

Given all this I came across an interesting article by Bevan Holloway, who writes about curriculum changes in Aotearoa New Zealand.

And his article is very revealing.

Have a read -

Yes Rata, a key advisor of Stanford on education mattes, specifically notes their aim is “ending decolonisation’s success”.

I had a quick look for Elizabeth Rata, and found a 2022 article of hers on “The Democracy Project” (now morphed into The Integrity Institute).

That article is called ‘The Decolonisation of Education in New Zealand’ where she posits some quite radical ideas including believing that “decolonisation’s dangerous victory” will be “destroying confidence in the science”.

Rata also regularly appears on Sean Plunket’s ‘The Platform’.

I don’t have a lot of time to parse it all today - but I feel that what Holloway unveils is very significant - and it’s a dangerous, ideological advancement progressing under our noses, without our awareness - yet again.

Thank you to Holloway for the article.

PS

And Hipkins responding to Treasury’s opinion on Covid spending -