95bFM Concerns over ‘anti-Māori Government’ removing te reo Māori for early readers
27 August, 2025
Interview by Caeden Tipler, adapted by Zanoor Penny
The University of Auckland’s Margaret Mutu says the Government’s decision to exclude te reo Māori from books for early readers goes against evidence supporting mixed-language learning for children and sends a negative message to Māori children.
Last week, Education Minister Erica Standford announced the removal of all Māori kupu, except characters’ names, from the new books in the Education Ministry's Ready to Read Phonics Plus (RtRPP) series.
The decision was made with what linguists say is “mixed” evidence, suggesting that using both te reo Māori and English would confuse young readers.
University of Auckland Professor of Māori Studies, Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Whātua), who holds a PhD in linguistics, told 95bFM’s The Wire that removing Māori kupu from children's books will be detrimental to their education.
“There is no question that a child who learns more than one language when they are very young has a distinct advantage in that they are able to access not only two languages but two cultures; two ways of thinking, especially when the languages are not related to each other.
“Before the age of seven is when children can absorb just massive amounts of information, and it's no problem.”
Mutu argues that all children in New Zealand hear Māori kupu on a daily basis, and not including the language in the school curriculum would confuse tamariki more.
“There are a huge number of borrowed words from other languages in the English language, but they only target the Māori words to take them out of it.”
She adds that for Māori children, it also sends the message that their world is not acceptable within the school system.
“... this is the effect of pretending that New Zealand English has no Māori in it whatsoever, and then targeting only the Māori words in there.”
Mutu believes this “anti-Māori Government” would not extend this ban to include other mixed-language books for earlier readers.
She adds that moves like this hold Aotearoa back from being fully bilingual.
“… you would find that [New Zealanders] could operate so much more effectively, so much more flexibly, with so much greater intellectual capability that comes with being multilingual.
“This is something that is understood pretty much across the world, except in the very few monolingual countries.”
Mutu emphasises the importance of multilingualism.
“It's always my hope that we will become a bilingual country, and that learning English and Māori in our schools is compulsory both ways.”
