NZ History Teachers’ Association chair Graeme Ball talks to the Maori Affairs select committee about the need for teaching the country’s colonial history in schools.

Students "groan" at having to learn New Zealand history and some teachers are feeling pressured to "quieten down" the amount taught in high schools.

Northcote College history teacher and chair of the NZ History Teachers' Association, Graeme Ball, told MPs at the Māori Affairs select committee on Wednesday that there's no data on how much of the country's colonial history is even taught.

Social studies is compulsory at year 9 and 10 but "as they exit year 10 we've lost any opportunity to share something of our past for the whole cohort" because history isn't compulsory.

SCOTT HAMMOND/STUFF Education Minister Chris Hipkins (centre) says it's up to schools how much colonial history is taught but "we could do better''.

While Ball says compulsion is not the answer, he says finding a way to convince more schools the importance of teaching New Zealand's history is necessary.

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He told a story of travelling to Ireland to do the Easter rising walks and meeting a 25-year-old barmaid who said she found Irish history "boring" at school.

JO MOIR/STUFF Graeme Ball, the chair of the NZ History Teachers' Association (centre) along with Mark Sheehan from Victoria University, and historian Dame Claudia Orange presented to Māori Affairs select committee about why learning New Zealand history in school was important.

"I couldn't believe it, the Irish history is incredible...now that she was in her mid-20s she said she was starting to find it more interesting."

He said that experience confirmed for him that part of the issue is "perception" and students won't choose to do history if they think too much of their own past will be part of the curriculum.

As a result, "there's been a pressure on teachers to quieten down the amount of New Zealand history they teach in their programmess'.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins said schools design their own curriculum and there is a lot of content around New Zealand history that can be taught.

"I think we could do better - I haven't seen any evidence that we're exemplary in this regard, but I think that's a question of making sure we provide better resources for schools rather than compulsion.

"I'd stop short of compulsion as well," Hipkins said.

Students often aren't interested in learning about what went on in their own backyard, yet, once they've spent time studying it the satisfaction rate at the end of the school year ends up being about 95 per cent, Ball said.

"Talk to any student who comes into social studies when you might start on a topic on the Treaty. They'll say two things, one of them will just be a groan, the second one will be 'we've done it endlessly'.

"Dig a little deeper into what they know about it and you'll find the understandings are either non-existent or very limited, or most often wrong," Ball said.

Other than a commitment from the Government to provide more funding to "build capacity" Ball said he couldn't think of any other solution.

"If you don't know your colonial history, you get adults who are unable to make intelligent comment" - Dr Claudia Orange at Māori Affairs Select Committee today on the case of teaching NZ history in schools. pic.twitter.com/4JeNpekzRT — Marama Davidson MP (@MaramaDavidson) June 20, 2018

National MP Nuk Korako asked whether learning New Zealand history as part of a career path like tourism was the answer to increasing the amount taught.

Ball said there was absolutely an opportunity around qualified guides needing to have a certain level of history as part of their skills.

"There's an opportunity to have people knowing their history and being able to make a dollar off it," he said.

Hipkins agreed there was an opportunity to better use career pathways to increase the amount of history taught.

"If a school has a high tourism component in their area then that's something they could look at building into their curriculum," he said.