Indigenous Maori and Tongan Perspectives on the Role of Tongan Language and Culture in the Community and in the University in Aotearoa-New Zealand

In Aotearoa New Zealand it has become clear that programms started by people in a community are a better possibility for robust partnership and practice in education. In fact, Indigenous Maori grassroots work to establish Te Kohanga Reo: Early Childhood Education converys this point well. The Indigenous Maori feature of Te Kohanga Reo is that partnership and practice are enmeshed in social networks that emphasize the richness of Maori language and the complex ways Maori people live their lives (culture). In this manner, Te Kohanga Reo elevates differences amongst tribes-the specific and the out of the ordinary-rather than blindly following technocratic assumptions of education grounded in the concept of the individual, sameness, and universals.