Tātaiako
Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners
Tātaiako describes what culturally competent teaching of Māori learners looks like — five competencies, each with behavioural indicators from entry into teacher education through to leadership, and each with outcomes voiced by ākonga and whānau themselves. Its goal is the goal of Ka Hikitia: Māori learners enjoying educational success as Māori.
“My teacher knows who my mates are… I know my teacher as a person.” — Learner voice, Tātaiako (2011) — what whanaungatanga looks like from the ākonga side of the classroom
🌱 What Tātaiako Is
Tātaiako was published in 2011 by the Ministry of Education with the New Zealand Teachers Council (today the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand). It is about teachers' relationships and engagement with Māori learners and with their whānau and iwi — designed for teachers in early childhood services, primary and secondary schools alike.
Its foundations come straight from Ka Hikitia, the Māori education strategy: identity, language and culture count — knowing where students come from and building on what they bring with them — and productive partnerships, where Māori students, whānau and educators share knowledge and expertise to produce better outcomes. The premise is evidential, not sentimental: high-quality teaching is the most important influence the education system has on outcomes, and effective teaching depends on the relationship between teacher and learner.
The competencies are not formal standards, but they map onto the profession's requirements (originally the Graduating Teacher Standards and Practising Teacher Criteria; today's equivalents live in Our Code, Our Standards, 2017). Tātaiako remains core reading in initial teacher education — and it supplied the concept of cultural locatedness that Tapasā later borrowed for Pacific learners.
🕊️ The Five Competencies
Wānanga
Participating with learners and communities in robust dialogue for the benefit of Māori learners' achievement.
Communication, problem-solving and innovation — engaging Māori learners, whānau, hapū and iwi in open dialogue about teaching and learning, co-constructing learning goals, and acknowledging that whānau and iwi have expertise in their own right.
Whanaungatanga
Actively engaging in respectful working relationships with Māori learners, parents and whānau, hapū, iwi and the Māori community.
Relationships — with learners, school-wide and with the community — held alongside high expectations. The learner-voice outcome is disarmingly concrete: my teacher knows my parents and whānau; my teacher knows who my mates are; I know my teacher as a person.
Manaakitanga
Showing integrity, sincerity and respect towards Māori beliefs, language and culture.
Values in action — caring for Māori learners as culturally located beings, treating students, whānau and iwi equitably and with sincerity, pronouncing Māori names well, respecting local tikanga, and understanding how Te Tiriti o Waitangi shapes one's own practice.
Tangata Whenuatanga
Affirming Māori learners as Māori — providing contexts for learning where the language, identity and culture of Māori learners and their whānau is affirmed.
Place-based, socio-cultural awareness and knowledge — harnessing the rich cultural capital Māori learners bring, and consciously using local Māori contexts (whakapapa, environment, tikanga, language, history, place) to support learning. All learning occurs within a cultural context.
Ako
Taking responsibility for their own learning and that of Māori learners.
Practice in the classroom and beyond — reciprocal teaching and learning. Maintaining high expectations of Māori learners succeeding as Māori, validating prior knowledge, planning pedagogy that engages, and positioning yourself as a learner too. “Tells me that we are both responsible for how well I do — we both get to celebrate when I do well, or have to try harder if I don't!”
🧭 Cultural Locatedness — The Developmental Spine
Each competency describes behavioural indicators at four points of a teaching career — and the focus of the competencies deepens at each step. Tātaiako names that deepening cultural locatedness:
Teachers carry the competencies of every stage up to their current one. And uniquely among the profession's framing documents, every competency pairs its indicators with outcomes written as learner voice and whānau voice — the test of whanaungatanga is not what the teacher reports, but whether the ākonga can say “I know my teacher as a person” and the whānau can say “we feel welcome and included.”
🏫 Classroom Implications for Aotearoa Teachers
- Start with your own cultural locatedness — the entry-level indicators all begin with understanding your own identity, language and culture, and how it shapes your relationships and teaching. The framework's first demand is self-knowledge, not knowledge of others.
- Treat learner voice as the success criterion — audit your practice against the outcome statements: would your ākonga Māori say you know who their mates are, that you never give up on them, that being Māori is valued in your classroom?
- Affirm Māori learners as Māori — success must not cost a learner their identity. Contexts for learning should affirm language, identity and culture, not require their suspension at the school gate.
- Whanaungatanga is professional work, not a personality trait — knowing learners' whānau, being visible in the community, and building relationships that enable Māori participation in decisions are indicators of competence, not optional warmth.
- Use local contexts deliberately — whakapapa, environment, tikanga, history, place. The local iwi and community hold knowledge your programme needs; tangata whenuatanga means engaging it.
- Read it alongside Tapasā — Tātaiako for ākonga Māori (tangata whenua, grounded in Te Tiriti), Tapasā for Pacific learners. Structurally similar, deliberately distinct — neither substitutes for the other.
📚 References & Source Documents
-
Ministry of Education & New Zealand Teachers Council. (2011). Tātaiako: Cultural
competencies for teachers of Māori learners. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
🎓 Teaching Council — Tātaiako ↗ - Ministry of Education. (2008). Ka Hikitia — Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008–2012. Wellington: Ministry of Education. — the strategy Tātaiako was built to serve.
- Education Council. (2017). Our Code, Our Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession. — the current standards the competencies now sit alongside.
All five competencies with behavioural indicators, learner voice and whānau voice outcomes