A Comparison of the scholastic aspirations and achievements of full time Maori and Pakeha pupils of the Correspondence School

Abstract

The Services Provided by the correspondence school for Maori and Pakeha Pupils. The Correspondence School, catering as it does for children living in remote areas of New Zealand where schools have not as yet been established, offers opportunities to study the scholastic aspirations and achievements of the two races, Maori and Pakeha, under similar environmental conditions. An important function of the school is the provision of education, especially at the secondary level for Maori children who make up a big proportion of the backblocks population. Education of both Maori and Pakeha by correspondence follows exactly the same pattern. The success achieved in the education of Maori children, especially in the primer classes in spite of the limited help that the parents in many cases were able to offer has amply justified the decision to adopt teaching by correspondence for the education of children from the back country areas. The school has consistently refused to differentiate between the two races. In fact, in its scholastic accounting, it has refused to divide its pupils into Maori and Pakeha and only recently in answer to urgent pleas by the Education Department has it sent in the July return giving the number of Maori children on the roll. This identity of treatment and the large percentage of Maori pupils on the roll provide source material for a comparative study of the scholastic achievements of the two races, material which has been preserved in the very full records kept by the school of all its pupils.