New Zealand Council for Educational Research
Its current statement of purpose says: ‘We use the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa to help us uphold mana Māori in our work, relationships, and ways of working’.
This approach was apparent in the 1970s, when Dr Richard Benton undertook his major study of the use of language in Māori homes and communities under the auspices of NZCER. A total of 6,915 households took part in the survey, and 6,470 Māori families comprising 33,338 individuals throughout the North Island were interviewed in depth.
The results galvanized Māori organisations, educationalists and others who realised that the Māori language faced a serious threat.
In 2017 the NZCER undertook a similar study of nine communities, Te Ahu o te Reo. This revealed, according to the Māori Language Commission, the ‘wonderful reality that, in some places where no inter-generational transmission was occurring in the 1970s, children are once again using te reo Māori at home with their whānau. Te reo Māori is now alive and regenerating in places where recently, the Māori language landscape was a desert’.