A voyage of discovery of our histories and shared future

By Education Gazette editors

Issue: Volume 97, Number 19

Posted: 26 October 2018

Reference #: 1H9n7N

Next year New Zealand will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the first meetings between Māori and non-Māori and the feats of Polynesian navigators and explorers who reached and settled in Aotearoa New Zealand many years earlier.

Tuia – Encounters 250 is a national commemoration of the multiple histories that formed our nation and aims for New Zealanders to talk about our rich histories and our national identity.

Education Ministry Deputy Secretary Parent Information and Community Intelligence Rose Jamieson says Tuia Encounters 250 is about our multiple lenses on history and how each New Zealander can play a part in shaping the future of our country.

“Everybody has a story about who they are and where they come from, and Tuia is an opportunity for all New Zealanders to explore that with each other,” she says.

National Voyaging Committee member Dr Wayne Ngata says that Tuia is an exciting opportunity for New Zealanders to understand more about navigation, voyaging and blue water sailing.

Tuia – Encounters 250 events will be held across the country throughout 2019, culminating in a flotilla of vessels: waka, the replica Endeavour, tall ships, vaka, and naval ships. The flotilla will travel to sites of significance for Māori, Pacific and European voyaging.

“We expect to have around 300 crew members on the flotilla vessels,” says Dr Ngata. The flotilla will launch in Gisborne/Tairāwhiti in early October 2019 and will travel until December 2019. A community voyaging education programme is also under development.

The Ministry will support the commemoration’s education work through Tuia Mātauranga, which is the national education programme to support teaching and learning using the themes of the commemoration and local curriculum development.

Regional commemorations are well underway in each of the four landing sites in Aotearoa where Māori and Europeans first met during the 1769 voyage – Gisborne/Tairāwhiti, Bay of Islands, Coromandel, and Marlborough.

To help start the Tuia kōrerorero, a Tuia Mātauranga wall planner is provided with this issue of the Education Gazette. An electronic version will also be made available as part of the suite of education resources.

Tuia Mātauranga will support teaching and learning by providing access to a curated suite of education resources for the Tuia themes, and will also provide support to apply them to your local curriculum development. These resources are currently in development and will be available from January 2019.

For more information, email tuia@education.govt.nz.