A study on the mana of te reo Māori in NCEA : te mauri o te mana Māori.

Abstract

Formal assessment for secondary schools commenced in the mid 1940's with School Certificate for Form 5 akonga (students), however at that time, te reo Maori was not taught in schools. At that time, te reo Maori was still suffering the effects of colonialism and past government policies such as the 1867 Native Schools Act, where this act stated that the school curriculum was to be delivered in English. Maori tamariki (children) were punished by their teachers for using te reo Maori in school.

In the 1970's, te reo Maori was implemented into secondary education as a teaching and an assessed subject in School Certificate. Although it was included into the classrooms as a learning subject, te reo Maori was not considered as an academic subject and was ranked at the bottom of the learning subjects ranking. Learning subjects were ranked where the ranking system only allowed a specified number of akonga to pass examinations. At this time, Latin, French and other Foreign Languages were ranked the highest learning subjects.

An overhaul of the national assessment commenced in 1997 and between 2002 and 2004 saw the induction of a new method of national assessment for secondary schools called the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) for Years 11 to 13. Te reo Maori continued to be a learning subject in secondary schools and used NCEA to assess learners. Between 2011 and 2014, NCEA assessments were aligned to the new New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and te reo Maori in English medium schools had its own curriculum document called Te Aho Arataki Marau mo te Ako i Te Reo Maori - Kura Auraki: Curriculum Guidelines for Teaching and Learning Te Reo Maori in English-medium Schools (te Marau). Te reo Maori NCEA assessments aligned to the achievement objectives of the Marau and changes were made for assessments for te reo Maori. This research attempts to investigate what a culturally appropriate assessment framework for NCEA te reo Maori comprises of and offers thoughts on how this can be achieved and by whom.