Who was to blame for the fall in te reo usage?

Graham Adams writes at The Platform:

The accusation that “Māori had their language beaten out of them at school” has become common shorthand for the widespread belief that it was Pakeha who were almost entirely to blame for the dwindling fortunes of te reo over the past 180 or more years.

For that reason, many people are shocked or disbelieving when they are told that prominent Māori were among those pushing most energetically for English to be the only medium of instruction in Native Schools. These were set up in 1867 as a nationwide system of secular primary schools for Māori children, for which hapū provided the land while the government provided the buildings and teachers.

It is an equally inconvenient fact that it was Pakeha missionaries who, from the early 19th century, were determined to teach Māori children in te reo — often against the wishes of Māori themselves, who saw proficiency in English as the key to success in trade and politics and as a gateway to the outside world.

In 1871, the newly elected MP for Eastern Māori, Karaitiana Takamoana, pointed out in Parliament that missionaries had been teaching children “for many years, and the children are not educated. They have only taught them in the Māori language. The whole of the Māoris in this island request that the government should give instructions that the Māoris should be taught in English only.”

Nowhere in the legacy media do we learn these inconvenient facts. It is just easier to paint a childish picture of Pakeha Government bad.

Sir Apirana Ngata — who served as Minister of Native Affairs, was ranked third in Cabinet and whose image graces our $50 note — mounted a  campaign in the 1920s and 1930s to have English given priority in Māori primary schools. He argued that proficiency in the English language was “the key with which to open the door to the sciences, the mechanised world, and many other callings”.

Furthermore, it was an approach enthusiastically endorsed by Māori parents. In 1930, Ngata stated that the primary purpose of the Native Schools was to teach English. “Māori parents do not like their children being taught in Māori even in the Māori schools, as they argue that the children are sent there to learn English and the ways of the English.”

Again key information we never learn elsewhere.