By Kananinohea Mākaʻimoku
Few can deny the impact Hawaiian-medium education has had in reviving ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. With the re-establishment of Hawaiian-medium schools beginning with Pūnana Leo and kula kaiapuni sites, these educational programs elevated the Hawaiian language movement and helped restore Hawaiian as a language of daily life.
In the early 1980s, most people who reported using ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi at home were primarily kūpuna (i.e., over the age of 50) and/or from the Niʻihau community – although it should be noted that the data reflects overall home language use, not necessarily the respondents’ level of fluency.
Alarmingly, however, fewer than 35 children outside of the Niʻihau community spoke Hawaiian fluently – highlighting the generational gap that existed and the urgency that led to the development of Hawaiian- medium education.
Today, an estimated 4,423 students across the state are educated through Hawaiian at Pūnana Leo and Papahana Kaiapuni Hawaiʻi sites.
These schools were created not simply to teach the language, but to restore ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi as a living language. Hawaiian was once the language of all sectors of society – including education, commerce, and government – and was spoken by people of many ethnicities who called Hawaiʻi home.
That vision of an ʻāina laʻelaʻe, where ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi thrives across all areas of daily life, remains the future many continue to strive toward.
Census data further reflects this progress: the number of people using Hawaiian at home increased from 9,060 in 1980 to 27,611 in 2023 – an increase of more than 200%, representing a tripling of the speaker population. This growth reflects the success of language revitalization efforts through education.
While these achievements demonstrate the power of education in revitalizing ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, they also point to an ongoing challenge: ensuring that our growing number of Hawaiian-speaking students are supported by a new generation of fluent speakers prepared to become Hawaiian-medium educators.
As one example, kula kaiapuni sites have grown from two programs in their inaugural year in 1987 to 33 sites today. Over the past decade, student enrollment has increased by 67%. However, growth in student enrollment also requires growth in the number of highly fluent teachers.
During this same period, the ideal number of Hawaiian-medium teachers has increased from approximately 59 to 100, representing nearly a 70% increase in workforce demand. The need for Hawaiian-medium teachers is rising as quickly as the programs themselves.
Yet the pool of potential teachers remains limited to the number of highly fluent speakers of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. In many language-medium and immersion programs around the world, schools can recruit fluent speakers from the homeland of the language – for example, fluent speakers of Japanese from Japan or Mandarin speakers from China who can become teachers in those programs. For ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, however, Hawaiʻi is its homeland.
As a state with two official languages and two language-medium education pathways – Hawaiian and English – the challenges facing Hawaiian-medium education are distinct. Unlike English-medium programs, which can draw from a vast and continually replenished global pool of English speakers, Hawaiian-medium education must grow its own speaker base while cultivating the teacher pipeline to ensure that our growing number of haumāna in the Hawaiian-medium pathway are supported by a new generation of fluent speakers prepared to become Hawaiian-medium educators.
Hawaiian-medium educators have been recruited from among Hawaiian language college and university programs, from kaiapuni graduates of Hawaiian-medium and immersion schools, from parents within immersion communities, and from community speakers. Every fluent speaker represents a potential future kumu.
Fluent teachers create environments where Hawaiian becomes the natural language of learning and communication. In these spaces, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi becomes the language of relationships, spoken among students, classmates, teachers, and others within the school community.
Hawaiian-medium sites function as language ecosystems that influence both families and communities, encouraging the use of Hawaiian at home and expanding the presence of the language beyond the classroom: developments reflected in census data.
For this reason, the future of kaiapuni education depends on strong speaker-to-teacher pathways that cultivate fluent speakers and prepare them to become the next generation of kumu for Hawaiian-medium education.
Kananinohea K.C. Mākaʻimoku is an associate professor at Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani UH Hilo College of Hawaiian Language and the program coordinator for the Kahuawaiola Indigenous Teacher Education Program.
Na Hawaiʻi nō e Hoʻoulu i nā Kumu ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi
He kanahā makahiki aku nei i hoʻohuli ʻia ke kānāwai e pāpā ana i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi ma nā kula. Ua paio nā alakaʻi, nā ʻohana, a me nā kākoʻo o ke aukahi hoʻōla ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi no ka wehe ʻia o nā kula Pūnana Leo a me nā kula o ka Papahana Kaiapuni Hawaiʻi. Ua puka ʻelua mau hanauna mai ia mau kula aku a ke ānehe nei i ka hanauna ʻekolu e hoʻonaʻauao ʻia nei ma o ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Ua laha ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi ma nā mokupuni a pau o ka pae ʻāina e noho ʻia nei e kānaka i kēia mau kula.
Eia naʻe, i ka ulu ʻana o ka nui o nā haumāna e komo nei i ia mau kula, ulu pū ka nele o nā kula i ke kumu ʻole. ʻAʻole i like ka hoʻomākaukau ʻana i ke kumu no ke ala kaiaʻōlelo Hawaiʻi me ke ala o ke kaiaʻōlelo kūʻonoʻono e like me ka Pelekānia. Ke nele ia mau kula i ke kumu, ua hiki ke paikomo i nā kumu mai ke one hānau a me nā ʻāina hoʻokama o ia ʻōlelo kūʻonoʻono. No ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, ʻo Hawaiʻi nō kona one hānau, ʻo Hawaiʻi nō kona kulāiwi. No laila, na Hawaiʻi nō e hoʻoulu i nā kānaka poeko o ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi e lilo i kumu no nā hanauna e hiki mai ana.
