Māori Language Award Winners Are Proud To Create Online Safety Resources In Te Reo Māori

Tātai Aho Rau Core Education were awarded the Digi Matihiko Award at the Māori Language Awards on Friday night, along with their partners Grok Academy, an Australian based digital technologies provider, focused on creating safer online spaces for learners.

The award is for a major project to translate and adapt an online cyber-security course into te reo Māori. Creating these cyber-security resources for kura reflects a commitment to improving digital safety for all learners in Aotearoa.

The resources and courses are available for ākonga in years 9 - 13, and offer accessible resources for learners in Aotearoa. The Australian-created suite of online cyber-security resources, Cyber Skills Aotearoa was also aligned with our local curricula.

The Māori language team at Tātai Aho Rau created a resource that empowers rangatahi Māori to engage in IT through te reo Māori.

Sample terms from Pūkenga ā-Ipurangi Aotearoa: taupānga / app; haumaru ā-ipurangi / cyber-security; kupuhipa / password; mūreretia / hacked; mōhiohio tūmatanui / private information; kīangahipa / passphrase; whakamuna / encrypt. 

For the Grok Academy, “Creating cyber-security resources for kura reflects our commitment to improving digital safety for all learners in Aotearoa. As it is in all languages, the cyber-security vocabulary in the project is complex.”

Tātai Aho Rau was approached by the Australia-based cyber-security organisation Grok Academy to ‘migrate’ their cyber-security platform to New Zealand schools. Other partners include BNZ, ASB, Netsafe, AWS, NCSC and Grok.

“This may be a world first - a broad, online cyber-safety programme in an indigenous language,” says Tumu Whakarae Hana O’Regan. “We plan to continue to create resources about our online environments in te reo Māori.

Grok has gained valuable insights about working with the Māori language This experience has offered transferable knowledge to diverse contexts in Australia. It is hoped the partnership can open doors to further work such developing resources tailored to Pacific communities and the ongoing promotion of this suite of resources.

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