logo
Ministry shelves book due to 'too many' Māori words

Ministry shelves book due to 'too many' Māori words

RNZ News2 days ago
A children's reading book has been shelved by the Ministry of Education because it has apparently got too many Māori words in it. In a message to schools, it said student sized copies of 'At the Marae' will not be reprinted due to the "high number" of te reo Māori words in the text. The Ministry of Education said Māori vowel sounds are different to English ones and that makes the book less appropriate for students to practise decoding wording using the phonetic method they have been taught. CEO of Te Akatea, the national association of Māori school principals and leaders spoke to Lisa Owen.
Tags:
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Plane reports smoke in cockpit
Plane reports smoke in cockpit

RNZ News

time10 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Plane reports smoke in cockpit

Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Firefighters were called to the Woodbourne Base, west of Blenheim, shortly before 1pm Sunday, after a plane reported smoke in the cockpit. Fire and Emergency shift manager Ryan Dawson said the plane, reported as a 50-seater Q-300, landed safely a few minutes later and firefighters responding to the emergency call were stood down. St John also responded, but was turned around before reaching the base. The Defence Force has been approached for comment. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

Greening the garden city: Ōtautahi's regeneration through nature, art and gardening
Greening the garden city: Ōtautahi's regeneration through nature, art and gardening

RNZ News

time12 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Greening the garden city: Ōtautahi's regeneration through nature, art and gardening

Artist and landscape architect Bridget Allen wouldn't have known how appropriate the name of her gardening business was to be when she set it up, out of Ilam art school and working at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. The name Regenerative Gardening Maintenance was prophetic given her city and its landscape was about to start regenerating. The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes saw not only buildings turned to rubble, large tracts of land, including an area around Ōtākaro Avon River the size of two New York Central Parks, started to turn from suburbia back to nature. The red zone has been turning green ever since. In the wake of tragedy artists and gardeners came together to innovate and create new public spaces, with an eye on sustainability and community connection. Allen cofounded New Brighton sewing charity Stitch-o-Mat and retrained as a landscape architect. Since 2023 she has been the director of The Green Lab , which began after the quakes as Greening the Rubble, creating urban green spaces and events for connection, while also working with residents to make their own backyards more sustainable. Ever busy with working and planting bees, workshops to build habitats for plants and nature, and consultations to help people make their backyards more sustainable, on August 16 Bridget is running with The Green Lab Birds of Brighton printmaking workshops. It's at the Make Station in New Brighton Mall at 11am and 1pm. No experience is needed. She joined Culture 101 's Mark Amery.

Lifting the tapu: Maori women who carve
Lifting the tapu: Maori women who carve

RNZ News

time13 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Lifting the tapu: Maori women who carve

It's commonly assumed that Māori women don't carve. Carving is a tapu occupation with its own tikanga and ritual. Women have often not been allowed to be present while a carver is working. It's a practice that continues on some building sites today. But tikanga varies and changes. The binary gender division with carving has often been broken. Last century, male mastercarvers like Pineāmine Taepa, Cliff Whiting and Paki Harrison taught women in toi whakairo, and women carvers have been written about by everyone from Sir Apriana Ngata to more recently art historian Ngaarino Ellis. But that doesn't mean it's easy. A new collective of wāhine Māori carvers, Te Ana o Hine , is creating a safe environment to support women who want to learn the craft. Te Ana o Hine - which can be translated as the cave of Hine - have recently established a carving studio with Tāmaki Makaurau art gallery Te Tuhi. Today Mark is joined by one of Te Ana o Hine's members, artist and curator Holly Tawhiao. Of Ngāti Tīpa, and Tainui descent, she is a Elam fine arts and Museum studies graduate. Known as a cultural advocate for Hamilton, she joins us from from the Kirikiriroa studio.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store