The Māori principals' association says the changes to the English curriculum will hurt Māori students. File photo. Photo: Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe
The draft secondary school English curriculum is ringing alarm bells for some teachers, with no reference to Te Mātaiaho - the framework that underpins every other curriculum area.
Teachers told RNZ the omission of Te Mātaiaho in the document published this week was bizarre, and they were worried it was part of a move to sideline the Treaty of Waitangi, which until recently had been a critical part of Te Mātaiaho.
Association of Teachers of English president Pip Tinning said the omission was unusual.
"When we look at all the different subjects, there still needs to be some alignment. It needs to have some clarity around what structures we all use and teach, and keep in mind. So when one is quite different to another you have a misalignment around how we teach your kids," she said.
Sources told RNZ that Te Mātaiaho had been dumped and there was no mention of it on the Education Ministry website introducing and explaining the curriculum refresh.
But Education Minister Erica Stanford told RNZ Te Mātaiaho had not been dropped.
She said it was not included in the draft English curriculum because it needed work.
"That's just because we haven't got to it yet... Once we've done more of the curriculum areas we'll look at the over-arching framework. We are keeping Te Mātaiaho, we just haven't quite got to that piece of work yet," she said.
The Education Ministry confirmed the framework for the curriculum, Te Mataiaho, was still under development.
"The updated design for the New Zealand Curriculum is based on the science of learning and ensuring excellent and equitable outcomes for students. The learning areas will provide authentic examples, demonstrating indigenous knowledge through the thoughtful and deliberate inclusion of Māori culture, language, and cultural contexts with disciplinary relevance," a spokesperson said.
"Work is ongoing to understand how the curriculum framework is refreshed alongside the revised focus of a knowledge-rich curriculum grounded in the science of learning."
The ministry said the curriculum was still organised using the Understand, Know, Do (UKD) model.
It said the draft secondary English curriculum emphasised knowledge and practices but one page of the draft covered the Understand section of both the primary and secondary English curriculums.
Other recent draft curriculums, such as secondary maths, did refer to Te Mātaiaho, but contained a crucial change. They said the curriculum's guiding principle was based on the science of learning, while earlier documents said it was Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Bruce Jepsen from Te Akatea, the Māori principals' association, said the change would hurt Māori students.
"The relationship between colonisation and education is one in which indigenous forms of knowledge and pedagogy are marginalised and suppressed and this is a case of that," he said.
"If we're being steered to teach the science of learning, structured literacy, structured maths, once again that ignores Māori ways of knowing, teaching and learning and, therefore, that's going to have a significant impact on tamariki Māori and all other tamariki."
Jepsen said the change was "educational violence" and it was not happening in isolation - the government was also moving to demote the importance of the Treaty in the official guidelines for school boards.
"So, really what we're experiencing from a board level, from a teaching level, from a leadership level is a total whitewash of Te Tiriti out of education," he said.
Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie said Te Mātaiaho was developed collaboratively with wide agreement.
He said omitting it from the English curriculum was a big change, as was replacing reference to the Treaty with reference to the science of learning.
"These are high-level principles, but everything falls out of that," he said.
"If this curriculum area, English, is out of step with all the other curriculum areas, that's a real concern."
Abercrombie said curriculum areas grounded in the partnership principles of the treaty would always have better outcomes for students.
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