" ...breathing new life into te reo"

A report was published yesterday by Statistics NZ. According to the media release:

Kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa breathing new life into te reo – media release

Half of Māori who have ever been enrolled in both kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa can speak te reo Māori well or very well, Statistics New Zealand said today.

This surprised me because I thought te reo speakers weren't increasing in number.

The 2001 census showed around 28.2 percent of the Maori population are te reo speakers.

By 2013 the percentage had dropped to around 23.7%.

The above statement though is based on a different data source, Te Kupenga. Amongst the younger groups the survey responses exceed the census. The reverse applies amongst the older age groups.



On the differences:

Respondents report different answers in different surveys

Alignment between responses from the 2013 Census and Te Kupenga, and the 2001 Census and the 2001 HMLS is not perfect. For example, 16.1 percent (4,000) of Māori who reported speaking te reo Māori very well in Te Kupenga had stated in the 2013 Census that they could not hold a conversation about a lot of everyday things in te reo Māori. At the other end of the scale, 4.1 percent (9,500) of Māori who reported speaking no more than a few words or phrases of te reo in Te Kupenga had stated in the 2013 Census that they could hold a conversation in Māori.

Here's another table with census age breakdown and raw numbers:


Table 1
Ability to hold a conversation about everyday things in te reo Māori, by age group
For the Māori ethnic group census usually resident population count aged 15 years and over
2001 and 2013 Censuses

Age group (years)	Number of Māori with conversational ability in te reo Māori		Māori population		Proportion of Māori population with conversational ability in te reo Māori(1) (percent)
	2001	2013	2001	2013	2001	2013
15–24	22,164	21,039	91,623	106,998	24.5	20.0
25–34	18,300	16,011	79,413	71,394	23.4	22.7
35–44	17,595	15,849	71,181	73,545	25.0	21.8
45–54	13,407	15,495	44,568	67,878	30.4	23.2
55+	20,343	23,997	43,014	76,467	48.1	31.9
Total	91,809	92,391	329,796	396,285	28.2	23.7
1. These proportions exclude responses that cannot be classified (eg ‘not stated’, ‘response unidentifiable’, and ‘response out of scope’). Source: Statistics New Zealand Draw your own conclusions. But I think the headline we started with is perhaps optimistic.