Longstanding debates about Māori knowledge in science classrooms have been reinvigorated by recent policy changes. This column focuses on the principle of ‘mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori’ that was adopted as one of seven changes in the programme aimed at strengthening NCEA, the national school qualification. Developed in the first term of the Ardern-led government from late 2017, the NCEA change programme was mandated in February 2020, but its implementation was then delayed or ‘rephased’ in April 2024, following a change of government in late 2023. Announcing the delay, the minister called the NCEA change programme ‘fundamentally flawed’ since it was designed at a time when the curriculum that it assesses was still under review. The rapid changes in direction for updating the curriculum under the current government also cast doubt over the future of this principle.
What is the significance of this principle? Some educators consider it helpful in their efforts to become culturally responsive teachers and allies to Māori. It has been praised by some scientists, who see value in teaching Indigenous knowledge ‘alongside’ science, pointing out that similar endeavours are receiving significant attention at the highest levels of international science. Others take dogmatic exception to the idea that science might benefit from Indigenous knowledge, in particular mātauranga Māori. Critics are writing letters to the editor to accuse proponents of mātauranga Māori of being antiscience based on reasons as flimsy as how the notion of teaching ‘alongside’ is understood or referring to draft proposals as ‘the curriculum.’
Closer inspection using Māori philosophy and logical reasoning is warranted of the meanings and effects of this policy principle. The first point to note is that this principle combines these two complex Māori language terms, ‘mana ōrite’ and ‘mātauranga Māori,’ neither of which is familiar nor widely understood in general educational policy discourse. If neither of the two terms is well understood, then by linking their meanings together, this principle is even more complex and difficult to understand. The first term, ‘mana ōrite,’ was first used in a publication in 2018 as a metaphor for bicultural partnership in the context of culturally responsive teacher practice. Mana ōrite was used to describe the relational intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The second term, mātauranga Māori, was hardly heard in education before the past few years; it has not been part of the national school curriculum, qualifications or administrative policies. Hirini Moko Mead wrote a valuable explanation of mātauranga Māori in 2012. Simply put, mātauranga Māori means Māori knowledge, broadly conceived. Mātauranga Māori is not divided into disciplines, which confounds comparisons with science, and indeed any curriculum area; it includes Māori concepts, values and perspectives (including critiques of how Pākehā have treated Māori throughout the history of their relationship) and also refers to the large proportion of Māori knowledge that has been lost in the course of that history.
Mātauranga Māori includes aspects of Māori culture and identity such as tikanga Māori, āhuatanga Māori, kaupapa Māori, manaakitanga, te reo Māori, waiata, tā moko, kapa haka and tauparapara. Mead points out that some critics claim that mātauranga Māori means only these things and nothing more – that it ‘belongs to the era before colonisation.’ But Mead refutes that view on two grounds: first, the renewed interest in Māori language, philosophies, literatures, observations of the natural and social worlds and diverse practices. Second, because, since colonisation, Māori have ‘borrowed outright’ from Western knowledge and other knowledge systems. Mead says of Māori:
We’re taking parts of other knowledge systems and incorporating them into our basket of knowledge…. We actively try to protect what was traditionally ours, and we take from others what might be useful to us.
In sum, the principle of ‘mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori’ is claiming ‘equal status’ for a holistic view of knowledge that is undefined and dynamic and potentially includes all knowledge. From a practitioner perspective, what is relevant or possible in terms of including Māori knowledge in classroom programmes differs according to the subject, topic and year level of the students. But the ancient Māori concept of mana is an attribute of people and refers to relationships between people, not knowledges. On this reasoning, to apply mana ōrite to knowledge must be seen as a metaphor; its meaning is thus metaphorical, not technical.
Understood as ‘equal status, ’ the metaphor evokes two ‘bodies of knowledge’ side by side, equal in size or value, which we might label as ‘mātauranga Māori’ and ‘curriculum knowledge.’ But if mātauranga Māori includes Western knowledge, then, even as metaphor, the principle is moot. For all these reasons, this principle cannot be used to guide the allocation or provision of content for curriculum or assessment. In the science classroom, it does not mean ‘teaching equal amounts’ of mātauranga Māori and science.
The deeper value of the principle comes from the more authentic Māori meaning of mana as referring to people and relationships between people. In that sense, the phrase ‘mana ōrite’ translates as ‘respectful relations.’ The principle of ‘mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori’ can then be understood as calling for respect for Māori knowledge. This call for equal mana is an effort to counterbalance the weight of history during which Māori knowledge was ignored, excluded, distorted and denigrated in the national post-colonial knowledge systems of New Zealand, including the school curriculum and science itself. Scientists and the ‘defenders’ of science are hampered in their ability to understand the significance of this call by their lack of knowledge: of history and philosophy of science; of Māori knowledge; and of the non-whitewashed history of New Zealand and the modern world.
The general lack of knowledge of these matters is studied by agnotology, which means ignorance that is both inadvertently and deliberately promulgated, including in schools and universities. While Western knowledge, especially science and technology, have advanced to levels never before seen in the history of humanity, those advances have been achieved at the expense of incurring knowledge costs, and agnotology is a name for those costs. To take an obvious example, the extreme specialisation of science disciplinary knowledge causes at least some of the ignorance among scientists of other domains and forms of knowledge.
This discussion about knowledge also involves a relationship between people – those participating and those who care about the discussion. So far, as noted above and elsewhere, little respect for their opponents is being shown by those speaking out on behalf of science. In constructing their arguments, these critics of mātauranga Māori show a lack of care for the basic criteria of science and scholarship. Despite knowing little about Māori knowledge, they claim that the mana ōrite principle derives from other concepts, namely social constructivism and relativism, and then attack those concepts. They rely on large claims lacking evidence, such as criticising other authors for not acknowledging ‘that the political climate in New Zealand has stifled open, facts-based debate.’ They posit the problems, as they see them, of including mātauranga Māori in school curricula, then say it’s fine to include it in other school subjects, just not in science. These attitudes betray a lack of concern about the interests of others and, indeed, of the whole.
The principle of ‘mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori’ makes sense in terms of living relationships between people rather than in making inert comparisons between different forms of knowledge, as its critics insist on doing. Mead is explicit in explaining that mātauranga Māori means the knowledge that Māori students bring into the classroom. Dawkins is championed by the critics of mātauranga Māori, yet his most famous ideas are regarded as ‘dangerous delusions’ by global philosophers of science, and his insults about the mana ōrite principle were easily shown up as baseless by local commentators. Mātauranga Māori or its global counterpart, Indigenous knowledge, did not cause the looming problems facing humanity and cannot be expected to solve them. But, Indigenous knowledge is a reminder that science has limits and can offer only part of the solution for the infinitely complex problems of the real world. The critics of mātauranga Māori need to cultivate humility about the limits of science and respect for others who hold different ideas. These are among the gifts contained within the full meaning of mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori.
