Editing Native schools (section)

=== Other curriculum issues ===
In the late 1800s, [[George Hogben]], Director of Education, implemented the policy of removing academic subjects, such as [[Latin]], [[Euclidean geometry]] and [[algebra]], which were subjects that were part of the matriculation programme for entry to a university, and focused the curriculum of native schools on agricultural and technical instruction and domestic skills.<ref name="NZCER1">{{cite book |editor-last1= Hutchings|editor-first1=Jessica|editor-last2=Lee-Morgan|editor-first2=Jenny |title= Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, research and practice |year=2016|publisher= NZCER Press|isbn=978-0-947509-17-0|chapter= Chapter 1, Reclaiming Māori education, by Ranginui Walker| chapter-url=https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/Chapter%201%20Ranginui%20Walker.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407144022if_/https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/Chapter%201%20Ranginui%20Walker.pdf|archive-date=7 April 2022 }}</ref> It was pointed out that there was nothing to stop a Māori from learning classics, maths and algebra (for example) at a regular public school.<ref name="Trust report 1">{{Cite web|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/5|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624042141if_/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/5|archive-date=24 June 2019|title=Te Aute and Wanganui School Trusts (Report and evidence of the Royal Commission on)|website=Paperspast (Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1 January 1906)|page=G5, 95–96|access-date=24 June 2019}}</ref> Regarding Te Aute College, there was a recommendation in 1906 that "having regard to the circumstances of the Maoris as owners of considerable areas of suitable agricultural and pastoral land, it is necessary to give prominence in the curriculum to manual and technical instruction in agriculture.<ref name="Trust report 2">{{Cite web|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/0|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624042143if_/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/0|archive-date=24 June 2019|title=Te Aute and Wanganui School Trusts (Report and evidence of the Royal Commission on)|date=1906|website=Paperspast (Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1 January 1906)|page=G5, iv|access-date=24 Jun 2019}}</ref>  This view was supported by Māori politicians.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19171005.2.80|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725193920/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19171005.2.80|archive-date=25 July 2019|title=Native Schools|date=5 October 1917|work=Dominion|access-date=26 Jul 2019}}</ref> [[William Watson Bird|William Bird]], Inspector of Native Schools, expressed the opinion that the objective of Māori education should be to prepare pupils for life among Māori where they could take the skills they had learned to improve the lives of people in their home villages.<ref name="Trust report 3">{{Cite web|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/5|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624042141if_/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1906-II.2.2.5.5/5|archive-date=24 June 2019|title=Te Aute and Wanganui School Trusts (Report and evidence of the Royal Commission on)|date=1906|website=Paperspast (Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1 January 1906)|page=G5, 93|access-date=24 Jun 2019}}</ref>

In 1912, the government was considering handing control of native schools from the Education Department to local Education Boards. Members of Parliament [[Āpirana Ngata]] and [[Peter Buck (anthropologist)|Te Rangihīroa]] spoke against suddenly doing so, saying that "far better results were attained by Maori children at Native schools than at public schools. The reason was that at public schools Maori children, to whom English was a foreign language, were placed side by side with white children, who had obtained a colloquical [sic] knowledge of English in their own homes. In the Native schools special attention was paid to the teaching of English".<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=26 September 1912 |title='Danger of the color line.' |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19120926.2.22 |work=Gisborne Times |agency=Press Association}}</ref> Ngata said that Māori were suspicious that their children did not receive the same attention at board schools as at native schools.<ref name=":1" />

In 1929 history was added to the native school curriculum, with teachers being advised to emphasise Māori and New Zealand history, and in 1930 a new primary school syllabus was introduced to board schools and (with modifications) to native schools.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1930 |title=Education of Native Children |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1930-I.2.2.4.3 |journal=Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives |volume=Session 1, E3 |pages=3, 5 |via=Papers Past}}</ref> The new syllabus was criticised by an ex-Inspector of Native Schools in 1936. He stated that:<blockquote>The Maori language has been degraded and corrupted, and the young Maori has learned to aspire after pakeha ideas, sports and fashions and to despise Maori ways. The idea that the Maori would soon be absorbed into the pakeha population was one stultifying cause, and another was the lust for examination results inherent in a system run by ex-teachers and easily communicated to parents and the public. The most urgent reform in the education of the Maori is to restore and preserve the Maori language. Thousands of Maori children cannot speak Maori. This is a great loss.<ref>{{Cite news |date=8 February 1936 |title=Education of the Maori |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19360208.2.99 |work=Northern Advocate |pages=12 |via=Papers Past}}</ref></blockquote>At a Māori conference in 1936 the subject of teaching Māori language was discussed and attendees pointed out that children in native schools were punished for speaking Māori. Academics at Auckland University College supported the view from the conference that Māori language and culture should be fostered at native schools,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2 October 1936 |title=The Maori Youth |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19361002.2.41 |work=Gisborne Times |pages=5 |via=Papers Past}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=3 October 1936 |title=Strong Support |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19361003.2.111 |work=Auckland Star |pages=13 |via=Papers Past}}</ref> but by 1939 the Inspector of Native Schools was able to state that pupils seemed to be thinking in English more often and translating more easily from Māori to English.<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 September 1939 |title=Growing Demand |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19391212.2.37 |work=Auckland Star |pages=5 |via=Papers Past}}</ref>