Māori Language Week 2010
Māori education in European schools
Maori school children, with Annie Henry and others, at Ruatahuna, circa 1917, B&W negative, Photographs owned by Sister Annie Henry, Reference: 1/2-030943-F
Māori education in European schools
If I Only Knew Then What I Know Now
From Te Ao Hou No. 73, July 1973
Thinking back now to 1930, would you say that the sort of education that the Maori children had been having was serving their needs?
Partly. Looking back again from this position with the knowledge that we have in social sciences and so on, we're inclined to wonder why Pope* and Mr W. W. Bird insisted on our European and English education for Maori people. And they didn't only insist on it, it was a belief with them—it was a philosophy. Now, they'd acquired it from the Colonial Office; one of our earliest Governors, Governor Fitroy, laid down a policy of assimilation—that the only salvation of the Maori was to become a European—and these men really believed this.
Read the whole article on Te Ao Hou
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