Dr Julia Wilson (Te Arawa) and Tautemaria Silva (Waikato, Ngāpuhi) are working on a project to provide guidelines from a tauira perspective for universities to improve support for te reo Māori.
Te reo Māori revitalisation movements are increasing the numbers of fluent Māori speakers throughout the country. While universities provide the option to submit assessments in te reo, students and staff are not always supported to realise this.
A project to provide guidelines from a tauira perspective for universities to improve support for te reo Māori has received Whatua Tū Aka Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) funding.
Tautemaria Silva (Waikato, Ngāpuhi) is the primary investigator on this project ‘Manaakitia te Reo: Tauira perceptions towards maintaining te reo use in higher education’, with support from Dr Julia Wilson (Te Arawa) as associate investigator. Both are Teaching Fellows with Te Mātai Tikaka Takata - Social Anthropology.
In this project, they will hear from tauira Māori fluent in te reo attending Ngā Taiātea Wharekura and Te Kōpuku High School, and then university, about their perceptions towards maintaining te reo Māori in higher education.
“We are very pleased and honoured to be receiving funding for this kaupapa that gives voice to our rangatahi Māori coming through tertiary education. It's definitely a full circle moment for me as a wharekura graduate who went on to graduate from university,” says Tautemaria.
Through wānanga, the team will identify barriers and enablers to the use of te reo Māori, and from this provide guidelines for universities and disciplines wishing to improve support for te reo Māori.
“We are both in the first generation in each of our families to learn te reo Māori following the active repression of te reo in the past. Hence, for us, this project is a way to contribute to the broader revitalisation efforts,” Julia says.
This duo have been working together in 2024 on a project ‘Manaakitia te Reo: Identifying practices and aspirations of staff and students for a te-reo-positive university’. While all New Zealand universities have a policy regarding the use of te reo Māori in assessment, there is currently very little published on either student or staff perspectives on these processes. The findings from this mahi helped to inform this newly funded project.