TE KOTAHITANGA SOWS SEED OF NEW LEADERSHIP DRIVE

TE KOTAHITANGA SOWS SEED OF NEW LEADERSHIP DRIVE (posted by Waatea news: Sept 30/2010)

A hundred schools have signed on to pilot a new leadership programme,He Kakano, which aims to improve education for Maori.

Waikato University's faculty of education and Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi have a three-year $7 million contract to deliver advice, support and professional development to schools in the programme.

Professor Russell Bishop says it draws on what's been learned from the classroom-based Te Kotahitanga programme about how Maori students learn, and how schools can take the identity, language and culture of their students into account.

He Kakano or the seed is for boards of trustees, principals, heads of department down to the individual teacher level.

“We're offering them a model which is based on the book we’ve just published, Scaling Up Education Reform. That book gives a seven point model for making a difference in schools and we’re saying, when leaders at whatever level they are in the schools can implement these seven points effectively, then you will see change taking place, because that’s what we found in our Te Kotahitanga schools,” Professor Bishop says.

Schools benefit for having an outside groups like the university or wananga to help them critically analyse what is going on in the classroom.

Critical Social Work: Indigenous Issues

Kia ora, look up the Critical Social Work journal, in Volume 11 there is a Special Indigenous Issues section. Good reading.

http://www.uwindsor.ca/criticalsocialwork/2010-volume-11-no-1-0