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Regional | Early Childhood Development

Bilingual Masters degree implemented at Waiariki Institute of Technology

Waiariki Institute of Technology has implemented a Masters bilingual degree in Early Childhood Education.

HOD of Early Childhood studies at the Institute, Joanne Hayes says “Our programmes are very similar, they differ in the amount of Te Reo that people will come in with and will exit the qualifications with, but we think we were successful because we had a very strong underpinning of bi-culturalism.”

Late last year the Institute was awarded two of three Ministry of Education contracts to develop postgraduate teaching qualifications.  Following this, the Institute developed the two Master of Teaching Early Childhood Education degrees, one with a focus on mainstream, the other with a bilingual approach. Both degrees are aimed at raising the quality of teachers in the industry.

Māori lecturer at the Institute, Anaha Te Hiini looks forward to installing the Māori language aspect into this degree, “Our focus will be teaching the Māori language in a correct manner because this will be important when the graduate continues to teach in Early Childhood Education” says Te Hiini.

The Master of Teaching Early Childhood degree begins in April with a completion date in March 2017.