Skip to main content

Story: Māori education – mātauranga

Girls at a native school

Video file

Schoolgirls are shown learning how to cook and sew at a native school in the 1940s. As the narrator notes, 'Theirs is not a specialist training, but a training for living.' The New Zealand education system typically did not promote academic education for Māori.

Using this item

Archives New Zealand - Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga

Reference: Weekly Review 324. National Film Unit, 1947

Permission of Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga must be obtained before any re-use of this material.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Ross Calman, Māori education – mātauranga – Māori education policy, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/34897/girls-at-a-native-school (accessed 3 June 2026).

Story by Ross Calman, published 11 June 2012.