Teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the Whānau Rūmaki teacher education programme, 1990-1992

In 1990 the School of Education, the University of Waikato, initiated a special option within its regular pre-service teacher training programmes, an option designed to prepare teachers to deliver the New Zealand curriculum in bilingual and total immersion schools through the medium of te reo Māori. This alternative programmed, designated Whānau Rūmaki, was experimental and evolutionary. Inevitably particular elements of it had to be varied with each year's operation as its architects attempted 'to get the mix right'. It is difficult, however, when engaged in the day to day running of a programme, to stand back and review with any degree of objectivity its strengths and weaknesses. This study, therefore, in retrospect attempts to do three things: one, to follow the initial Whānau Rūmaki student cohort through its three or four year training cycle noting especially the difficulties confronting individual students some of whom dropped out of the programme; two, to gather information from as many as possible of the graduates who graduated about how well they felt they had been prepared for the rigours of classroom teaching; three, to be able, after analysing the data gathered, to recommend ways of improving the on-going Whānau Rūmaki programme