Editing Native schools (section)

=== Decline of Māori schools ===
In 1947 George Brown, the only Māori on the Hawkes Bay Education Board, suggested that board schools and native schools should be unified completely under one system. He pointed out that most Māori children attended board schools and felt there was no longer any need for separate schools, unless there was a demand for a completely separate system.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=George |date=6 May 1947 |title=Unification of Schools |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GISH19470506.2.27.4 |work=Gisborne Herald |pages=4 |via=Papers Past}}</ref>

Native schools became known as "Māori schools" following the Maori Purposes Act 1947, under which all government usage switched from 'Native' to 'Maori'. The number of Māori schools began to decline in the 1950s. In 1958 almost 70 per cent of Māori children attended a board school, but there were still 157 Māori schools (down from 166 in 1955). The government's long-term policy was to transfer Māori schools to the control of education boards, in consultation with local Māori communities. The New Zealand Official Yearbook stated:<blockquote>The language of instruction in the Maori schools is English, but the schools are not completely English in outlook, for Maori arts and crafts, song, legend, and history are taught. Methods of teaching are practical, and objectives closely related to the special needs of the Maori people. In many of the Maori schools, such equipment as woodwork rooms, cookery rooms, model cottages, baths, hot and cold showers, and laundries is supplied. Health education is featured in every Maori school.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1960/NZOYB_%201960.html |title=New Zealand Official Yearbook |publisher=Department of Statistics |year=1960}}</ref></blockquote>The number of Māori schools continued to decline, and by 1968 there were only 108 Māori primary schools with a total of 8200 pupils, including 749 non-Māori children. 85 percent of Māori children attended state primary schools controlled by education boards, 11.1 percent were at Māori schools controlled directly by the Education Department, and 3.8 percent attended private schools (including Māori private schools).<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1970/NZOYB_1970.html |title=New Zealand Official Yearbook |publisher=Department of Statistics |year=1970}}</ref> The principal of Kaeo District High School noted that children from small Māori schools were hampered at secondary school because they did not have a good grasp of English. He stated that: “We have frequently discovered that children of even seven or eight years have no English word for quite common everyday things. Children such as these speak neither English nor Maori at home but a sort of pidgin mixture of both languages".<ref>{{Cite news |date=20 December 1967 |title=Mixing of Maoris urged |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19671220.2.14 |work=Press |via=Papers Past}}</ref> 

In 1968 the Prime Minister announced that all state Māori schools would be put under the management of education boards, and the last 108 native schools were transferred to the control of boards by the beginning of 1969.<ref name=Calman3>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Māori education – mātauranga – The native schools system, 1867 to 1969 |encyclopedia=Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |last=Calman |first=Ross |url= https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-education-matauranga/page-3 |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130721041401if_/https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-education-matauranga/page-3 |archive-date=21 July 2013|access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=7 May 1968 |title=Maori Schools' Service to End |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19680507.2.205 |work=Press |pages=32 |via=Papers Past}}</ref> The aim was to deliver a better service to Māori pupils.