Professor Brian Boyd: Place—or Race?—in Education

Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland has enshrined “place” in education in a top-down and almost entirely unargued-for way. “Place” appears to be a cover for race: an attempt at social justice and possibly an attempt to lift Māori performance in the university and society. The roots of this shift go back to 2022, when a broad curriculum “transformation” was proposed. The elements dealing with “place” were initially given great prominence. They promoted idealized, romanticized, and essentialized Māori ways of thinking and attempted to instil a narrow and fixed interpretation of te Tiriti o Waitangi.