Pride of the people: Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi - Championing Kohanga Reo

On the Kohanga Reo National Trust’s website a photo of a smiling, approachable koia takes pride of place.
The photo captures the undying attitude of board of trustees member, Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi despite the issues that continue to plague the cause that she has dedicated her life to.

 Three inquiries are currently under way into allegations of misspending by officials at the Kohanga Reo National Trust's commercial subsidiary Te Pataka Ohanga (TPO), including one by the Serious Fraud Office.
 Meanwhile, King Tuheitia has released a statement saying change for Te Kohanga Reo was "inevitable".
"The movement must maintain control over its own destiny," he said.

And Dame Iritana agrees… she does, after all not only contribute to various organizations today she is the founder of the movement and is determined not to let the decisions of others run her decades of work through the mud.

 Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi (nee Thatcher) grew up in the Hicks Bay (Ngati Porou iwi). At the age of 13 she was ‘shipped off’ on a four-year scholarship to Hukarere Maori Girls College in Napier. As the eldest child of eight Dame Iritana was set as the example to her whanau and community – whether she liked it or not.

 “I didn’t want to leave home,” she confides. “I worked hard to get through but I was in a hurry to get out. I felt isolated from my family and my community. I felt I was gaining an education that wasn’t understood by my people back home. I walked out after four years and declared I would not be associated with it again.
I loved the company of the girls but it was so strange at my age to be removed from my family.”

 Despite her distain for her situation the now mother of six was awarded Dux in her final year and moved on to complete a three year training course at teacher’s college in Wellington.

 “When I went to school in 1943 there were only two options for Maori females – to be a teacher or a nurse. When you compare that to the options today it is amazing how things have changed. Our young people are flying in all directions at all levels of education. I wasn’t wholly keen on either but I chose teaching as it was the better of the two for me. As it turns out it was a fortuitous choice because my whole life has been focused around education.
 “The whole of Ngati Porou placed a lot of emphasis on education which can be sourced back to Sir Apirana Ngata whom made giant strides in education himself. That emphasis on education remains today.
 “I got through and went back to Ngati Porou to relieve for a very well-known educationalist, Sylvia Ashton-Warner; a woman who was way ahead of everyone in her field. I walked into something quite different to what I had been trained to prepare.”

 Dame Iritana explains the difference was that there were 30 new entrants in the classroom and because of the number, the school called on the community; anyone who was available to come in and give support voluntarily.
 “When I took over I had this network of support from the extended family of those children. It was wonderful because if they saw that any of the children were struggling they asked to take some of the work home. There was a link between the school and the extended family that proved outstanding in the stride of learning those children made. It was that experience in 1948 that opened my eyes to the role that the extended family could play in supporting schools and teachers and it is a factor that has driven me over the years.

 “The system was set so at five years of age parents would hand their children over to the education system. It’s what I call the marginalization of the extended family in supporting schools. That was the key in the seed to my being asked to drive the Kohanga Reo movement in 1982.”

 Dame Iritana explains that her work attracted an anticipated backlash not only from non-Maori but also Maori academics who saw this as not a good move saying families did not know how to manage learning in the home.
 “This annoyed me. The only reason they didn’t know how to manage is because they weren’t taught. If you can touch people’s lives and tell them to have dignity, purpose, responsibility and hope you create a far different culture. If you take away the right of the people you cripple them.”
 
When the Kohanga Reo campaign began the umbrella agency was the Department of Maori Affairs and for the first seven years the trustees including Sir James Henare, Sir John Bennett, Sir Graham Latimer, the Maori Queen– people of imminence in Maoridom – had real opportunity to drive this.

“From 1982-1989 under the Department of Maori Affairs a movement flew – not just across Maoridom but nationally and internationally. We had people from Canada, United States and other indigenous cultures to come and look at this model. It had huge traction and I have since been to many countries to talk about this.”
The Kohanga Reo movement started with five pilots in 1982 and by the end of that year had well over 100 sites in operation. Despite only having been granted $5000 to fund the sites the families of the children sourced whatever else was needed.

The revenue from the first 100 groups that receieved $5000 funding in the first year went straight into another 100 in the next year and again in the third year. At the end of the third year there were 315 operating from their own resources and by the end of the seven years New Zealand was heading towards 800 Kohanga Reos.
But in 1989 the program took a significant blow when the Department of Maori Affairs closed down Dame Iritana explains. “The Government saw it as an early childhood movement which it wasn’t. For funding purposes it was moved into the Department of Education and when that happened a whole lot of new regulations came into play.

When you have a group of people who are flourishing and receiving tremendous results then come in and disregard their input and their knowledge you loose such a great resource.
I have great respect for anybody providing a service but I have a real concern that the people who matter most in the lives of children have the least role in education in their lives.”
Today, despite attempting to retire for several years, the 85-year-old sits on nine boards and chairs a company with a focus on continuing the Kohanga Reo movement.

“I’m extremely heartened through my many years of service in this field at what the Government and other organisations are looking at ways and means of lifting the bar. With what we’re doing there is always room to do better.  We need to respect what eachother are doing. So often we pull eachother down. We become competitive and operate in silos. If we only ever do what we did yesterday and pouring more money in without looking at how we can continually improve systems we are not doing working smart.”
www.kohanga.ac.nz
Dame Iritana’s top three tips for creating a better New Zealand:
 

1. New Zealand needs to get out of the soloist approach and collectively pool our resources to enable us to do better.
2. There needs to be a greater understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi and how it is meant to form a partnership rather than have a division between Maori and non-Maori.
3. I will never change my mind about the role of families. Children and youth deserve to have the support of families and extended families in their education.

 Source:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9872221/Kohanga-reo-trustees-must-be-accountable