Aspects of Secondary Education in the Maori Denominational Boarding Schools, (1930 - 1940)

Abstract

In recent years much has been written on Maori education. This research has been partly stimulated by official recognition of the inadequacies of the educational system to accommodate the specific problems of Maori students. Although several facets have been illuminated by these studies, one very important sector appears to have been neglected; the function that the denominational boarding schools have played, and will continue to play, in the education of the Maori. The Integration issue has resurrected these schools from an obscurity which has tended to be both traditional and stifling. Some New Zealanders regard church boarding schools, especially Maori, as anachronistic, divisive forces which should not receive substantial Government assistance. However, such a view has not restrained recent Administrations from pursuing their policy of allowing the schools to integrate into the State system. The importance of this policy must not be underestimated. This decisive action was long overdue and, as a consequence, the Maori denominational boarding schools may more confidently face the future. They have great potential as laboratories in which experimental education can be fostered. This thesis examines aspects of education in selected Maori denominational schools in the 1930's. In particular, it will concentrate on a debate over the curricula being conducted by the various bodies concerned and the respective points of view of the principal protagonists. The prevailing educational philosophy of the 1930's placed the Maori on the land and few influential figures thought otherwise. Agricultural education was thus given top priority by Department of Education officials. Those running the schools had gradually become converted to the belief that a more general education would benefit their charges. Throughout the decade the Department attempted, through its scholarship system, to pressurise the schools into adapting their respective courses to conform to official requirements. The proposition is advanced that it was the schools, and not the Department, which had a clearer perception of the future society into which Maori students would have to move. In several ways the lack of sympathy demonstrated by Department officials and the bureaucracy generally severely retarded the operating efficiency of the schools at the time and for years to come.