Queen's birthday honours recognises leading lights of ECE

Queen's birthday honours recognises leading lights of ECE - Publication date: 2 June 2009

This year's Queen's birthday honours have recognised two leading lights of the New Zealand Early Childhood Education sector.   Mrs Iritana Te Rangi Tawhiwhirangi, C.N.Z.M., M.B.E., of Masterton was recognised for services to Maori education.  Valerie Burns was recognised for her life long commitment to improving and developing early childhood education in New Zealand.

Mrs Iritana Te Rangi Tawhiwhirangi, C.N.Z.M., M.B.E. 

While initially designed as a means to revitalize the Maori language, kohanga reo achieved much, much more by mobilizing thousands of Maori parents to become involved in the education of their children.

Picking up on the playcentre philosophy of community ownership and management, Iritana helped create a whanau development model that is not only underpinned by cultural and administrative sovereignty, but has also created new opportunities in education and employment for Maori women.

Internationally, the kohanga reo model is now the established benchmark for the regeneration of indigenous languages. The excellence seen today in the annual national Te Korimako oratory competitions for Maori secondary students, is derived from the foundations laid by kohanga reo.

While Iritana works from a Maori philosophy, she is one of those rare people who can move effectively in both the Maori and Pakeha worlds and be respected in both. She is politically astute and has shown outstanding leadership in lobbying members of parliament of all political hues to provide funding for the kohanga reo movement, without which it probably would not have survived.

Valerie Burns

Valerie Burns has made a significant contribution to Early Childhood Education in New Zealand over a period of 36 years.  

Valerie was the first woman Director of Early Childhood Education  Department of Education, a post which she held for six years, and she has held a number of key public and private sector positions focussing on the development and improvement of the early childhood sector. Valerie also worked voluntarily for ten years in parent co-operatives and family based organisations, becoming a leader in the Play Centre movement.

She has been involved in a significant number of major milestones for ECE in New Zealand, and her contribution is still being felt today.   

Valerie has been on national committees in both New Zealand and Australia and produced 42 papers, one of which is published in the ERIC collection in the U.S.A. 

Valerie is well known as a teacher, lecturer, speaker, and visionary for New Zealand's early childhood education sector.