Story: Ngā rōpū – Māori organisations

Students from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Piripono (from left) Ben Aratema, 16, Sala Masina, 16, and Melissa Saunders, 15, stand on a mound of earth that was used to make the flax-and-earth building in the background. Their school is in Ōtara, South Auckland. Kura kaupapa Māori (Māori language immersion schools) were a natural progression from kōhanga reo, which started from the early 1980s.