Maori Education in 1993: A Review and Discussion

Abstract

Was 1993 a happening year or was 1993 a happening year! A number of significant events, in national as well as global terms, occurred. It was: the centenary year of Women’s Suffrage in Aotearoa; the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People, linking “an estimated 250 million indigenous people in more than seventy countries around the world” (Te Puni Kokiri, 1993a); an election year; and the final year of the Development Decade, which was outlined as the third objective of the kawenata, the covenant, declared by Maoridom at the Hui Taumata, the Maori Economic Development Summit held in 1984, marked in Te Rapa this year with the holding of the 1993 National Commercial and Economic Development Conference, organised by the Ki Tua o Te Arai Trust (Te Puni Kokiri, 1993b). Each of these events has major implications for Maori education during 1993 and beyond. Analyses of the implications of these events for Maori education provide the major organising themes for this paper. The events of 1993 have stimulated much critical debate, research and scholarly analyses of the issues they encompass. We will all be the richer for the publication of these new works. Numerous conferences have been held and books launched. Some of the books capturing this year’s themes with significance for Maori education include: Standing in the Sunshine (Coney, 1993); Maori Women and the Vote (Rei, 1993); Nga Mahi Whakaari a Titokowaru, Ruka Broughton’s previously unpublished draft doctoral thesis (Broughton, 1993) (the first Maori text on Titokowaru to be published, following the two previously published texts in English by Pakeha writers); Learning Liberation: Women as Facilitators of Learning (Manchester and O’Rourke, 1993); Te Ara Tika: Maori and Libraries – A Research Report (MacDonald, 1993); Educating Feminists: Life Histories and Pedagogy (Middleton, 1993); Te Maori i roto i nga Mahi Whakaakoranga – Maori in Education (Davies and Nicholl, 1993); Women Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand (Else et al., 1993); and Te Hikoi Marama, Volume 2 – A Directory of Maori Information Resources (Szekely, 1993)...