On 12 September Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced that New Zealand’s histories will be taught in all schools and kura by 2022. [Note, "histories", not "history". Sounds promising.]
The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa will be updated to make learning New Zealand’s histories explicit, so that all learners and ākonga are provided with opportunities to learn about the events that have shaped our nation, and the different perspectives New Zealanders have of these events.
The national curriculum currently enables schools and kura to decide how New Zealand’s histories is covered, but variation in delivery means too much is left to chance in the teaching and learning of this history, Ardern said.
Updated curriculum
The updated curriculum will span the full range of New Zealanders’ experiences and is expected to include:
- the arrival of Māori to Aotearoa New Zealand
- the first encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi / Treaty of Waitangi and its history
- the colonisation of, and immigration to, Aotearoa New Zealand, including the New Zealand Wars
- the evolving national identity of Aotearoa New Zealand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s role in the Pacific
- Aotearoa New Zealand in the late 20th century and the evolution of a national identity with cultural plurality.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said it is important for learners and ākonga to understand New Zealand’s histories as a continuous thread, with contemporary issues directly linked to major events of the past.
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Related. Localised curricula. No one knows what's being taught. Professor Elizabeth Rata, Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland, explains.
WATCH THIS SPACE for a research report on the reactions of NZ children when they learnt about our history, and the horrific "history" of a small, peaceful Taranaki town. -- ACW.
1 comment:
Croz
The Musket Wars deserve a more prominent place as they provide the best entree to an understanding of why Treaty Settlements are so difficult and how disruptive the introduction of a new technology was to the equilibrium of indigenous interrelationships. The drop in estimated population from 150,000 to 100,000 may not have been solely due to armed conflict but the disruption was profound. The data provides a good measure against which to assess the following impact of the assault mounted by British imperial interests in the wars that were to follow.
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Joe Hill
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