New classrooms for Kura Kaupapa announced
The government has announced $28 million will be spent on building more "safe, warm and dry classrooms" for tāmariki in Māori full immersion schools.
Twenty new classrooms will be built across four providers, and work will begin on the first stage of a new school north of Auckland.
Eight classrooms at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Ara Whanui in Lower Hutt
Six classrooms at Te Wharekura o Arowhenua in Invercargill
Four classrooms at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hokianga in Kaikohe
Two classrooms at Te Wharekura o Kirikiriroa in Hamilton
The new development, for Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngāringaomatariki in Kaiwaka, will eventually have 19 classrooms, Minister of Education Erica Stanford said on Friday.
"This Matariki, I am proud to be celebrating the Māori New Year with investing in the future of our tāmariki so they have the spaces and support they need to flourish."
ADVERTISEMENT
Construction on the modular buildings is expected to begin in the next 12 months.
"Safe, warm and dry learning environments are essential for effective teaching and learning," Stanford said. "By using modular construction, we can deliver classrooms more quickly and make our investment go further."
She said it was part of a $50 million Budget allocation to deliver 50 new classrooms for Māori medium and Kaupapa Māori education.
"We remain committed to properly resourcing our bilingual education system and lifting achievement for Māori students. That includes ensuring our tāmariki have warm, safe and dry classrooms to thrive in," Stanford said.
The announcement was made at Takaparawhau, Bastion Point, during Matariki Hautapu celebrations with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
National did not support making Matariki a holiday when it became one in 2022.
rnz.co.nz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
39 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Pacific Waves for 21 June 2025
Kapa haka group celebrate Matariki in NZ's Northland; NZ's pause on funding is 'patronising' - Cook Islands PM; New faces eager to enter Samoa politics; Experts brought in after cyber attack on Tonga health database. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Otago Daily Times
2 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Counting on the census
One of the great pillars on which modern New Zealand society is based has been scrapped by the government in a move which has shocked many. The five-yearly, or thereabouts, census has seemingly had its day, Statistics Minister Shane Reti reckons. He announced on Wednesday that New Zealanders had, for the last time, needed to scurry about looking for a pen to fill out the forms or pray that the more recently online documents would work as intended. Citing the need to save time and money, Dr Reti signalled the census will be replaced with "a smaller annual survey and targeted data collection". This will, according to the somewhat breathless Beehive media release, provide better quality economic data to underpin the government's "growth agenda". In line with this thinking, there will be no census in 2028, with the new approach starting in 2030. The new method of collecting nationwide statistics will sharpen the focus on delivering "more timely insights into New Zealand's population", the minister reckons. Good luck with that. While we should not automatically kibosh something before it has had a chance to prove its worth, it is difficult to see how what may effectively be a scattergun approach will be superior to the system which has developed over more than 170 years. The census has, of course, never been perfect. There were well-publicised issues with the 2018 and 2023 counts, and the five-yearly spacing has been interrupted several times, due to such events as the Depression, World War 2 and the Christchurch earthquake in February 2011. There were also concerns about the robustness of responses when the 2023 census was held the month after Cyclone Gabrielle. Dr Reti also has some justification for being concerned about the cost of the census, which has ballooned during the past decade. According to government figures, the 2013 census cost $104 million, but outlay for the 2023 one was $325m, and the now-ditched 2028 one was expected to cost around $400m. The huge leap in price is certainly concerning. Based on those government numbers, there can be no doubt running a census is a very expensive business. However, we need to remember, and perhaps remind the government, that the policies which are meant to benefit everyone across the country in healthcare, education, housing, transport and so on, actually cost many billions of dollars. The price-tag for a census which informs those policies is definitely not chicken feed, but money generally well-spent. Reaction to this week's announcement has largely been negative and expressing surprise at the move. There is particular concern about how cherry-picking data and using smaller sample sets will affect the rigour of information about Māori and Pasifika communities, and also people with disabilities, rainbow communities, and smaller ethnic groups. Dr Reti's promised land of a "sharpened focus on quality" when it comes to statistics will be extremely difficult to achieve. There are crucial questions to answer around how people's existing data within government agencies will be appropriately and sensitively used, who decides what to use and when, and who will oversee the process to make sure it is as comprehensive and fair as such a potentially fraught new system can be. We are uneasy that this move appears to be another example of this government not being especially interested in the science or data necessary for good decision-making and for making policy which is evidence-based, instead careening ever-more wildly across the political landscape in pursuit of zealotry-driven outcomes. We unapologetically support the census system we had, and believe in the provision of proper statistical data sets for modern-day needs and as a source of valuable information for the historians of the future Beware the old saying: "Garbage in, garbage out."
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Scrapping national census raises data sovereignty, surveillance fears for Māori
By Lara Greaves, Ella Pēpi Tarapa-Dewes, Kiri West, Larissa Renfrew of An administrative census will use information collected in day-to-day government activities. Photo: 2023 Census, Stats NZ Analysis - Wednesday's announcement that the five-yearly national census would be scrapped has raised difficult questions about the effectiveness, ethics and resourcing of the new 'administrative' system that will replace it. An administrative census will use information collected in day-to-day government activities, such as emergency-room admission forms, overseas travel declarations and marriage licences. The move is not necessarily bad in principle, especially given the rising cost of the census and declining participation rates, but to make it effective and robust, it must be properly resourced - and it must give effect to the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi), as set out in the Data and Statistics Act. The transformation process so far leaves considerable room for doubt that these things will happen. In particular, there are major ethical and Māori data sovereignty issues at stake. As Te Mana Raraunga (the Māori Data Sovereignty Network) advocates, data is a living taonga (treasure), is of strategic value to Māori and should be subject to Māori governance. Changes to census methods risk compromising these values and undermining public trust in the official statistics system in general. Because the new system takes census data gathering out of the hands of individual citizens and households, it also raises questions about state surveillance and social licence. Surveillance means more than police stakeouts or phone-tapping. The state constantly collects and uses many kinds of data about us and our movements. For more than a decade, the Integrated Data Infrastructure has been the government's tool to patch gaps in its own data ecosystems. This administrative data is collected without our direct and informed consent, and there is no real way to opt out. The safeguard is that information about individuals is 'de-identified', once it enters the Integrated Data Infrastructure - no names, just data points. Stats NZ, which administers the system, says it has the social licence to collect, cross-reference and use this administrative data, but genuine social licence requires that people understand and accept how their data is being used. Stats NZ's own research shows only about one in four people surveyed have enough knowledge about its activities to make an informed judgement. The risks associated with this form of surveillance are amplified for Māori, because of their particular historical experience with data and surveillance. The Crown used data collection and monitoring systems to dispossess land and suppress cultural practices, which continue to disproportionately affect Māori communities today. Meaningful work to address this has taken place under the Mana Ōrite agreement , a partnership between Stats NZ and the Data Iwi Leaders Group (part of the National Iwi Chairs Forum). The agreement aims to solidify iwi authority over their own data, and ensure Māori perspectives are heard in decision-making around data and statistics. On the face of it, repurposing administrative data seems like a realistic solution to the census budget blowout, but there are questions about whether the data and methods used in an administrative census will be robust and of high quality. This has implications for policy and for communities. Administrative data in its current form is limited in many ways. In particular, it misses what is actually important to Māori communities and what makes life meaningful to them. Administrative data often only measures problems. It is collected on Māori at their most vulnerable - when they're in crisis, sick or struggling - which creates a distorted picture. In contrast, Te Kupenga (a survey by Stats NZ last run in 2018) included information by Māori and from a Māori cultural perspective that reflected lived realities. Before increasing reliance on administrative data, greater engagement with Māori will be needed to ensure a data system that gathers and provides reliable, quality data. It is especially important for smaller hapori Māori (Māori communities), which need the data to make decisions for their members. Stats NZ plans to partly fill the data void left by removing the traditional census with regular surveys, but the small sample size of surveys often makes it impossible to obtain reliable information on smaller groups, such as takatāpui (Māori of diverse gender and sexualities), or specific hapū or iwi groups. Photo: RNZ /Dom Thomas It is not clear the implications of this have been fully been worked through in the census change process, nor is it clear whether the recommendations from Stats NZ's Future Census Independent External Review Panel - from Māori and a range of experts - have been fully considered. This included crucial recommendations around commissioning an independent analysis informed by te Tiriti principles, meaningful engagement with iwi-Māori and the continuing implementation of a Māori data governance model developed by Māori data experts. We are not opposed to updating the way in which census data is collected, but for the new approach to be just, ethical and legal will require it to adhere to te Tiriti o Waitangi and the relationship established in the Mana Ōrite agreement . Lara Greaves is an Associate Professor of Politics, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington Ella Pēpi Tarapa-Dewes is Professional Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Kiri West is a lecturer in Indigenous Communication, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Larissa Renfrew, is a PhD Candidate, School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau. - This story originally appeared on [ the Conversation].
