The following is the journey of yet another mother trying to get her son access to quality education for her son here in New Zealand
Yes, Maori again
Her journey is totally unacceptable and we continue to WAIT for professionals to resolve the issues
This is how Maori are treated here in New Zealand
We are expected to be grateful for what we get and to "celebrate" Waitangi Day on 6 February 2023
183 years later and this is the best our NZ education system can offer our people?
As Maori, we are blamed for poor educational outcomes and for causing trouble by speaking up.
We are told to send our children to school and shut our mouths and be grateful that our children are so fortunate to get an education.
Those that succeed often leave us behind to fend for ourselves.
Many of us do not know our rights and do not get the support of legal teams. The Ministry of Education and other government agencies will have access to Crown Law to represent them.
We are left to self-represent with no legal knowledge.
We are told to go to Community Law who tells us that they do not have the legal knowledge to represent us.
It would be unethical for them to represent us.
So we go it alone and defend ourselves
That in NZ is called Natural Justice
Back to case #2 - The mother concerned about the safety of her son and other children in the school
Who is involved in trying to resolve this issue - far too many.
- Ministry of Education
- Three Limited Statutory Managers
- Ombudsman
- Education Review Office
- Teachers Council
One must ask -
- Why does it take so long?
- Why the need for the involvement of all the professionals?
- What are they doing?
- How much money will it cost the taxpayer?
Note:
The principal remains working with no consequences with the support of the Ministry of Education.
The mother advocates for her son with my support
We have no funding and we do not have a legal team
Initially, complaints were made to the relevant agencies tasked to provide resolution and support - we were declined. We were ignored and disregarded.
Students will not go to school to be treated so disrespectfully
Parents will not send their children to school to be treated with disrespect
Because it increasingly more schools are NOT SAFE for our children.
Resolving these issues is a systems-wide problem and whanau cannot do that for them
It is very clear to me, given the involvement of so many professionals in the two case studies I have presented that the professionals are ineffective in resolving the issues
Their poor performance has exacerbated the problem by involving more professionals, protracting the process and causing significant and long-term harm to the children and whanau especially poor educational outcomes.
The money, resources and time pumped into the professionals to resolve the issues do not go towards supporting our children and teachers.
Can they not see that their poor performance is denying children access to quality education?
The following are in her words:
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