Tçnâ koe Pamela

Thank you for your email of 21 October 2022.

This email is to confirm receipt. We will consider your email alongside your other correspondence we received from you on this matter on 7 October 2022.

Ngâ mihi nui

Shauna Lough (she / her)
Advisor, Correspondence and Events – Strategy and Communications
04 917 1500| [email address]
Office of the Auditor-General Te Mana Arotake
Improving trust, promoting value
Level 2, 100 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 3928 Wellington 6140
oag.parliament.nz | Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram

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Tçnâ koe Pamela

Further to our email of 21 October, we would like to provide you with an update.

We will require more time to respond and will get back to you in due course. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Ngâ mihi nui

Shauna Lough (she / her)
Advisor, Correspondence and Events – Strategy and Communications
04 917 1500| [email address]
Office of the Auditor-General Te Mana Arotake
Improving trust, promoting value
Level 2, 100 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 3928 Wellington 6140
oag.parliament.nz | Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram

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Tçnâ koe Ms McKirdy

 

Thank you for your enquiry, and for your patience as we have looked into
your request. We considered your request alongside the other
correspondence we received from you on this matter on 7 October 2022. 

 

You asked whether we could provide the reference for a statement from our
2012 report Education for Mâori: Context for our proposed audit work until
2017.

 

The statement was from a timeline in Part 3 of our report which indicated
that in 1903 there was a “Nationwide policy to impose a ban on (or
discourage) te reo being spoken in the playground.”

 

As the audit was originally published in 2012, and the staff members who
worked on that report are no longer employed with the Office, we have had
to retrieve the audit files from the archives to identify the reference
you requested.

 

We have carried out a search of our physical archived material, but we
were not able to locate reference to a specific policy from 1903 to
substantiate the reference in our audit report.

It is possible that the reference is held in electronic files in our
archived document management system, but that would require a further
search and may take some time.

 

The team did however carry out an online search and found a source that
refer to practices from this time period that, while not referring to a
specific government policy, do appear to support the description in our
report.

 

The following is an extract from Ka’ai-Mahuta, R. (2011). The impact of
colonisation on te reo Mâori: A critical review of the State education
system. Te Kaharoa, 4(1). Retrieved at: 
[1]https://doi.org/10.24135/tekaharoa.v4i1....

 

“By 1903, the use of Mâori as a medium of instruction and communication
within schools was officially discouraged by educational authorities (Bell
1991: 67). Then in 1905, teachers in Native Schools were strongly advised
by the Inspector of Native Schools to encourage Mâori children to speak
only English in the playground (Walker 1990: 147). This led to widespread
prohibition and eventually children in Native Schools were forbidden to
speak te reo Mâori in the classroom or in the playground and in many cases
corporal punishment was used freely as an oppressive tool against children
who disobeyed (Ka„ai-Oldman 1988: 23).”

 

Whether there was an official policy is also the subject of discussion by
the Waitangi Tribunal in its’ report on The Te Reo Mâori Claim (WAI 11,
1986). Retrieved at [2]Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Te Reo Claim
(justice.govt.nz). 

 

We note the Tribunal’s view that:

 

“on what we have heard it was clearly at least a practice widely followed
that during the first quarter of this century Maori children were
forbidden to speak Maori in school, even in the playground, and that they
were punished if they did so.” (pg 9, para 3.2.8)

 

While we can’t be certain, we think it is likely that the reference in our
report was intended to summarise information from these publications, or
the publications which they reference.

 

We hope this information is useful to you.

 

Ngâ mihi 

 

Leeanne McAviney (she/her)
Assistant Auditor-General – Sector Performance
04 917 1500| [3][email address]

Office of the Auditor-General Te Mana Arotake
Improving trust, promoting value
Level 2, 100 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 3928
Wellington 6140
[4]oag.parliament.nz | Follow us on [5]Twitter, [6]Facebook, [7]Linkedin,
and [8]Instagram

 

 

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