National's Education Failures and Assault on Māori Language | The Jackal


10 Aug 2025

National's Education Failures and Assault on Māori Language

In a move that's akin to cultural erasure, Education Minister Erica Stanford’s Ministry of Education has banned a Māori book, At the Marae, from classroom use for the absurd reason that it contains “too many Māori words.” This book, designed specifically to support the teaching of te reo Māori, is a vital tool for fostering bilingualism in Aotearoa’s classrooms. To deem it unsuitable because it embraces the very language it seeks to teach isn't just ludicrous, it’s a deliberate attack on Māori identity in an attempt to undermine the revitalisation of an official language of New Zealand.
 

On Friday, 1 News reported:

 
Fury as ministry cans kids book for too many Māori words

The Education Ministry has canned a reader for junior children because it has too many Māori words, infuriating Te Akatea, the Māori Principals' Association.

The association's president Bruce Jepsen said the decision not to reprint At the Marae was racist and white supremacist.

The ministry told schools At the Marae, did not fit the sequence that young children were now taught to decode words using the structured literacy approach.


Te Akatea, the Māori Principals’ Association, rightly called this decision “an act of racism,” with president Bruce Jepsen decrying it as a step toward recolonising education. Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated incident but part of a broader, insidious pattern under an authoritative government to strip Māori language and culture from public view. The removal of “Aotearoa” from passports, the planned erasure of Māori names from road signs, and the renaming of government agencies to exclude te reo Māori are all symptomatic of a racist agenda, which is costing taxpayer's millions of dollars with no quantifiable benefit, to diminish Māori presence in our literature and shared spaces.

Take the Electoral Commission's renaming of the Rongotai electorate to Wellington Bays, an act devoid of any rationale beyond a clear intent to erase Māori nomenclature. No consultation, no justification, just a blunt rejection of a name tied to Māori heritage obviously undertaken at the behest of the current racially motivated government. The coalition’s track record on Māori language extends to other shameful decisions. The redirection of $30 million from the Te Ahu o te Reo Māori programme, which trained teachers to deliver te reo Māori, to fund a maths curriculum refresh plagued with problems is a stark example.

Experts have debunked Stanford’s claim that the programme failed to improve student outcomes, labelling it misleading and a pretext for defunding Māori education. Sadly, government ministers aren't adverse to lying in order to further their racist agenda. This follows the coalition’s decision to review Treaty of Waitangi clauses in education and other legislation, a move critics argue is designed to undermine Māori rights and co-governance. However, Stanford’s leadership has been equally disastrous when looking at her broader education policy direction.
 

On Friday, RNZ reported:

'Wouldn't overblow it' - Education Minister on maths book errors

The Education Minister has thanked "keen bean" students for picking up errors in Ministry of Education-funded maths resources.

Eighteen errors were spotted and fixed in new maths resources, including incorrect sums, a wrong number labelled in te reo Māori, and incorrectly saying "triangles" instead of "rectangles" in an answer.

In one case, an answer to a problem in a Year 4 workbook was listed as 1024, and had to be changed to the correct answer of 19,875.


Standford's casual dismissal of 18 errors in Ministry of Education-funded maths resources, errors as egregious as incorrect sums and mistranslations of te reo Māori (e.g., “rua” written instead of “whā” for the number four) is emblematic of a government prioritising haste over quality resources that teachers can actually use. Stanford’s flippant “I wouldn’t overblow it” response, thanking “keen bean” students for spotting mistakes, downplays a systemic failure likely exacerbated by an overbearing racist agenda and over-reliance on artificial intelligence in resource development.

In July, RNZ reported:

School curriculum rewrite had serious problems, managers considered using AI to help

Internal Education Ministry documents sighted by RNZ reveal serious problems plagued the rewrite of the school curriculum earlier this year and managers were considering using AI to help with the work.

The latest leak from the organisation shows only a few months ago it lacked a clear definition of the core concept underpinning the entire rewrite - "knowledge rich" - even though it had already published primary school maths and English curriculums by that time and had nearly completed draft secondary school English and maths curriculums.

It was also struggling with repeated requests for changes.

...

The latest leak followed a series of disclosures of internal documents that prompted the ministry to hire a KC to investigate where they were coming from.

A "programme status report" sighted by RNZ said the introduction of a new process for developing the curriculum posed an "extreme" issue to the work.

"The new delivery process is adding complexity to both internal and external delivery and review procedures as we do not have a clear definition of a knowledge rich curriculum and what it looks like in a NZ context," it said.

"There is no international comparison we can pick up and use."


The hasty rewrite of the school curriculum, driven by a ministerial advisory group appointed in late 2023 by Erica Standford, has been marred by inadequate due diligence, resulting in a litany of errors that undermine student learning. In fact the coalition of chaos has failed the education litmus test spectacularly. Since taking office, student attendance has plummeted, with only 67% of schools engaging in the government’s Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) programme by April 2025.

NCEA literacy and numeracy pass rates also expose the National-led coalition’s abject failure, with Māori students achieving a dismal 22% pass rate in 2024, compared to 67% for non-Māori, leaving 78% of Māori learners without equitable outcomes. But instead of helping the 45,000 Māori students struggling under a system starved of resources, the government instead plans to get rid of  NCEA to try and hide their systemic education failures. Worse yet, they are undermining education for Māori students further by cutting $30 million from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori programmes, which previously supported 1,200 teachers annually, and a $15 million reduction in culturally responsive education initiatives, deepening the systemic neglect that perpetuates Māori underachievement.

The National-led coalition government’s systematic erasure of Māori words from public spaces, such as road signs, passports, and government agencies, coupled with new financial burdens like the doubled $100 International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy (IVL) for some visa categories in 2024 and additional charges of up to $35 per person for access to popular walking tracks like the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, threatens to derail New Zealand’s tourism industry, which generated $37.7 billion and supported 318,000 jobs (14.4% of the workforce) in 2023.

The truth of the matter is that nobody wants to visit a racist country. Māori culture, including te reo Māori, is a cornerstone of the tourism appeal, with 68% of international visitors citing cultural experiences as a primary draw. The government's openly racist policies and suppression of Māori language risks alienating this market, especially as competitors like Australia and Canada bolster Indigenous tourism programs.

The IVL hike and new track fees, impacting 1.9 million annual visitors and 200,000 track users respectively, have already contributed to a 7% decline in arrivals from key markets like the UK and USA in 2024 compared to pre-COVID levels. Together, these policies could stall tourism’s recovery, with long-term economic losses projected at $20-$30 billion over the next decade, as New Zealand’s unique Māori cultural identity, a global brand asset, is undermined by ignorant government policies.

Education Minister Erica Stanford’s tenure has been a cascade of blunders, exposing her incompetence and disregard for accountability. In May 2025, Official Information Act releases revealed she used her personal Gmail account to handle sensitive government business, including pre-Budget documents and visa policy changes, breaching the Cabinet Manual’s explicit rules against such practices. This “untidy” conduct, as Stanford admitted, risked cybersecurity breaches, with Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime slamming it as a “welcome sign to threats to national security” affecting millions in taxpayer-funded decisions.

Standford's failure to properly oversee Associate Minister David Seymour’s free school lunches programme has been equally disastrous, with 124,000 daily meals from subcontractor Libelle Group (liquidated in March 2025) marred by delays, nutritional shortfalls, contaminated and inedible food. Stanford only learned of Libelle’s collapse through media reports, further highlighting her detachment from critical oversight. Her apparent inability to grasp NCEA’s complexities has also drawn scorn, particularly in regards to her rushed six-week consultation for sweeping NCEA changes, which critics called inadequate for reforms affecting generations of learners. Stanford’s downplaying of 18 errors in Ministry-funded maths resources and her defense of a hasty curriculum rewrite riddled with inaccuracies, further erode confidence in her ability to get things right. These numerous missteps, alongside her dismissal of Māori education concerns, cement Stanford’s record as one of reckless negligence and cultural insensitivity, failing New Zealand’s students and taxpayers at every turn.

Despite all the evidence, the coalition of chaos' actions betray a deep-seated aversion to Māori culture and a reckless approach to education. Banning a book like At the Marae for embracing te reo Māori isn't just an administrative blunder, it’s a calculated nod to the government's never ending war on indiginous rights and another step toward cultural erasure. The National-led coalition’s legacy is one of division, incompetence, and a shameful disregard for the Treaty of Waitangi. Aotearoa deserves better than a government that fails its children and disrespects its indigenous heritage. New Zealand therefore deserves a change of government.

Published by the Jackal