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Source: ONE News -
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The Maori Affairs Minister is calling for Maori to be given open entry to universities.
Pita Sharples says university culture remains foreign to many Maori and he wants a more Maori-friendly teaching style.
The Maori Party co-leader says just 7% of varsity graduates are Maori and fewer Maori secondary students make it to university than any other ethnicity.
"Open access means you can go in at any age. You come out of school with a miserable record and go into university," says Sharples, the associate education minister.
Thousands of Maori do study tertiary courses at wananga institutions which embrace kaupapa Maori values but Sharples says secondary schools don't do enough to prepare Maori for the culture shock of university study.
"Everyone has talked a lot about stuff but not much is happening," he says.
Already many universities reserve places for Maori in courses like law and medicine but they are hesitant to open the floodgates and risk dumbing down institutions. And the Prime Minister appears to agree.
"If young Maori are not meeting the grade with NCEA, we need to go back to resolving the issues in relation to literacy and numeracy rather than letting people into university holus bolus," John Key says.
But Sharples says he will continue pushing the government for a better deal for Maori students.
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