“What is good for Māori children is good for all Aotearoa’s children,” says Associate Professor Mere Skerrett (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Rakiāmoa, Ngāti Ruahikihiki, Ngāti Māhuta, Ngāti Unu, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Te Rangiunuora, and Ngāti Pūkeko). And she doesn’t know why more people can’t see it.

Mere is the co-head of the School of Education in Te Whānau o Ako Pai—the Wellington Faculty of Education and wants every learner in Aotearoa New Zealand to be bilingual in te reo Māori and English.

“Bilingual children have been shown to have nimble brains and more sophisticated decision-making abilities than monolingual children. Why would we not want this for all our children? We need to look at language as a resource. It is something that will take us places.”

As well as having nimble brains, te reo Māori speakers hold the keys to tikanga and mātauranga Māori that are embedded in the language, she says.

Mere is far from alone in wanting te reo Māori to be taught to every child. A 2021 Statistics New Zealand survey found 62 percent of people aged 15 and over supported te reo Māori becoming a core subject in primary schools—that’s up from 54 percent in 2016.

She remains frustrated the Government hasn’t made te reo Māori part of the core curriculum. In July, Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis said he thought Aotearoa wasn’t quite ready for this yet.

Mere disagrees. She says work being done by herself and colleagues at the University is readying teachers to take te reo Māori into the classroom and a mandate would support them to do this.

“We are constantly working to increase Māori language domains and support the gains both within courses and within assessment, in coordination with the Teaching Council.

“All our teacher education staff are encouraged to pursue further te ao Māori knowledge and we are now able to enrol our staff in Te Ahu o Te Reo, a teacher-specific course [developed by the Ministry of Education] that helps staff improve their language skills.”

Mere is also involved in a research project with associate professors Jenny Ritchie and Judith Loveridge about te reo Māori teaching and learning in the University’s teacher education programmes.

“When our students start, we get them to self-assess their language learning. They do the same survey again at the end of their course, whether one- or three-year. This survey allows us to see where students are at and how best to serve their needs. It also lets students track progress in their own language learning.”

She admits it is difficult to include te reo Māori as a focus within the one-year programmes because the curriculum is so packed.

“However, within the three-year Bachelor of Education for early childhood educators, we build relationships between students and iwi so that students can build confidence in their teaching and support one another.”

She says she was “delighted” to see the $10 million funding in Budget 2022 for the newly established Te Tahua o Te Reo Kairangi (the High Proficiency Fund). This fund will support programmes delivering higher levels of te reo Māori proficiency, with the aim of increasing the number of proficient speakers and education workforce capabilities.

She’s also hopeful the $5 million support package announced in the Budget for iwi-Māori scholarships will help boost the Māori teaching workforce.

“While the Māori language education budget is only a small investment in terms of the total Budget, and the sector has been under-resourced for so long, this gives me a positive outlook for the future.”

Further Government support would be welcomed for teachers to create effective transition programmes—where Māori-speaking children may need to move to monolingual English-speaking environments due to the lack of a reo Māori schooling option, she says.

“These programmes can also assist with the broader aims of supporting languages in the curriculum.”

Mere herself was raised speaking English. Her mother was bilingual in English and Māori, and her grandmother spoke Māori.

“When we returned to our marae, my mum would talk to her elders in Māori. We would hear them, but because they were not speaking directly to us, we would not understand what they were saying. Now I am fluent myself, I think what a taonga I missed through not being able to speak to my kaumātua in te reo Māori.”

Thanks to kōhanga reo, her five children all speak te reo Māori.

“Our tamariki and mokopuna represent the future of te reo Māori. We need to promote the language journey and become a bilingual nation.

“Anybody who commits to a language-learning pathway—commits to hearing, reading, writing, and speaking te reo Māori—will find their competence grows to a level where they’ll discover new opportunities in all sorts of places.”