Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu: how can language and literacy be optimised for Māori learner success?

Key Findings

Professional development

• There is a demand for quality and qualified Māori literacy tutors who are knowledgeable in tikanga and te reo Māori. This highlights the need to train more Māori bilingual literacy tutors.
• Competent literacy and language teaching practice is critical to developing student engagement with their course-related content. This needs to be considered from an indigenous pedagogical approach to literacy. 
• A holistic approach to upskilling all staff in Māori pedagogical languages and practices can close the cultural gap and provide understanding that comes with teaching Māori learners.
  

Habitus

• Māori habitus (inherent cultural being) needs to be understood and valued as being distinct from the generic term ‘student centredness’.
• Student difficulties in engaging with learning are a product of their prior education experiences, rather than individual deficits.
  

Māori-focused support

• Preparing Māori students to transition into tertiary level study and mainstream learning environments is highly valuable.
• Organisational systems and processes need to be responsive to and supportive of Māori learners (e.g. enrolment processes).
• Effective Māori support systems (e.g. whakawhanaungatanga) are relevant to meeting student retention and success.
• Holistic diagnostic tools and assessments are critical to measuring student literacy and language capabilities. Hence, Māori habitus becomes a critical focus in the design and delivery of these tools.
  

Community engagement

• Strategic engagement between tertiary institutes and PTEs and/or iwi is important to developing reciprocal goals that support literacy and language for Māori students.
• Strategic engagement between tertiary institutes and PTEs and/or iwi is important to developing reciprocal goals that support whānau aspirations (e.g. access to kōhanga reo/childcare facilities).
  

The key findings link to the significant chapter observations in Chapters 2, 3 4 and 5.