This project examined current practices for measuring Māori participation and achievement in science and mathematics, investigated student experiences of science and mathematics in English medium and Māori medium schools and investigated the views of whānau, parents, caregivers and teachers of Māori students regarding science and mathematics education.

This research project’s origins date back 22 years when Dr Joe Te Rito helped establish local Māori radio station Radio Kahungunu in Hastings. Joe saw how the dialect of his iwi Rongomaiwahine-Ngāti Kahungunu was diminishing in quality, in terms of grammatical and spoken fluency, with each generation.

Bridget (Ngāti Raukawa) is the director of Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare at the University of Otago, Wellington. Her research interests are in the areas of social and economic determinants of health, inequitable treatment in the health system, the impact of racism on health, and the development of kaupapa Māori epidemiology.

There are multiple Government funded initiatives aimed at addressing Māori language decline, including increasing the amount of Māori Language spoken, maintenance and quality. Te Puni Kokiri (2006 Health of the Māori Language Report) touched on the attitudes of wider New Zealand society towards the Māori language as unengaging and unlikely to change in the immediate future (p.7).

Credit: Thanks to Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries for reproduction of photo 7-A12343 (Karioi Native School)

Te Rau Tītapu is a community‐based wānanga initiative which is being conducted in the community of Waipoua, north of Dargaville in Northland.