Māori Language Immersion in New Zealand

Māori Language Immersion Education Analysis

Project Focus

Investigating Māori language immersion in New Zealand schools to support cultural revitalisation and inform equitable education policy.

Key Research Questions

Where is Māori immersion education concentrated across regions and school types?
Who participates: Is uptake linked to Māori enrolment or socio-economic status?
What patterns exist: Can schools be grouped into archetypes based on ethnicity and decile?
How is it changing: What are the trends in immersion participation over time

Data Source

New Zealand government official website, School Rolls by School (2010–2024)

Data Limitations

Because the dataset is aggregated at the school level, it cannot support individual-level or causal analysis.

Data Preparation

Values coded as "99" and missing entries in the Decile column were treated as invalid or missing data and should be cleaned or imputed before conducting analysis.

Data Cleaning

Values coded as "99" and missing entries in the Decile column were imputed using the median decile value based on each school’s historical records to maintain continuity and consistency in the dataset.

Exploring relationships

The variables of school decile, ethnicity, and Māori language immersion show different range of correlations.Immersion None aligns with European/Pākehā (r = 0.74).
This suggests that schools with a higher proportion of European/Pākehā students tend to have fewer students enrolled in Māori language immersion programmes.

Geographical Visualisations

High Immersion Area

Low Immersion Area

Regions such as Gisborne and Bay of Plenty show higher coverage of Level 1 Māori language immersion.
Non-immersion is prevalent across the country.

Supervised Machine Learning – Regression

European/Pākehā (%) is a strong predictor of Immersion None (%), explaining 56% of the variance (R² = 0.546, moderate fit).
This suggests that schools with higher European/Pākehā populations tend to have lower Māori immersion participation, revealing a demographic disparity.
However, the strong correlation between the two variables also suggests potential multicollinearity, which should be considered in further modelling.

Unsupervised Machine Learning – Clustering

Purple Cluster – High Decile, European/Pākehā Dominant:
Schools in affluent areas with predominantly European/Pākehā enrolments and low immersion participation.
Dark Purple Cluster – Mid Decile, Ethnically Mixed:
Schools with moderate socio-economic status and a more balanced mix of Māori and European/Pākehā students, showing moderate immersion engagement.
Pink Cluster – Low Decile, High Māori Immersion:
Schools located in lower socio-economic areas with higher proportions of Māori students and strong uptake in Māori language immersion programmes.

Time-series analysis (Auckland region, 2010–2024)

Stable enrolments from 2010–2013 (around 89,000).
Decline from 2014–2020, reaching the lowest point in 2021.
Sharp increase from 2022, peaking in 2024 (over 91,000).
3-year trend shows rapid recent growth.
5-year trend confirms a long-term reversal.
Indicates a shift back toward mainstream/non-immersion schooling.

The ARIMA model didn’t fit well since the dataset lacked frequent time points (e.g., daily or monthly data).Hard to fully remove autocorrelation issues due to sparse observations.

Recommendations

1. Increase Regional Support

Provide targeted funding in regions with low immersion uptake to ensure equitable access across the country.

2. Grow the Māori Teaching Workforce

Invest in training and incentives to address the shortage of qualified Māori immersion teachers.

3. Support Low-Decile Schools

Continue prioritising funding and resources for low-decile schools where immersion demand is highest.

4. Strengthen Continuity Across School Levels

Develop clear pathways from early childhood to secondary education to maintain long-term language retention.

5. Partner with Māori Communities

Enhance whānau and iwi involvement in programme design to ensure cultural authenticity and stronger engagement.