The Board of Trustees for Queen Victoria and St Stephens have elected a working group to undertake a study into it’s future.
Former student and trustee member Joe Harawira says they have been set with a task of looking at the feasibility of reopening schools like these.
The Northland Anglican Bishop Te Kitohi Pikāhu says former students are involved and it was pleasing to see a group of one mind with one goal in sight working together to achieve it.
It’s been over ten years since the closure of the schools but now the boards are pushing ahead with helping revive the former glory of the once esteemed boarding schools.
Mr Harawira says the process is in the beginning stages in terms of figuring how the schools would operate and be managed. The entire working group is also aware that a long and hard road lies ahead to bring the idea to fruition.
Ngāti Whātua gifted the Queen Victoria School site to the Anglican Church and Grant Hawke a spokesperson for Ngāti Whatua ki Orākei believes that if the group deems the task unfeasible then the land should rightly be returned to the iwi.
Presentlythe site of St Stephens has been condemned and was used for army training excercises, while Queen Victoria was leased out.
Mr Harawira has called on the schools alumni to contribute to discussion around the eventual reopening of the school with advocates claiming the opening of the school would benefit all of Māoridom.
For now, the future of Queen Vic and St Stephens lies in the hands of the working group.