The development of state education in New Zealand has been shaped by social and political interactions between Māori as tangata whenua of the land, missionaries, settlers, voluntary organisations and those charged with consolidating central state control. While the initiatives and systems were driven by colonial ambitions to protect and civilise the indigenous people through assimilation, and install a model of education based on European concepts of the purposes and delivery of learning, there have been times when Māori actively engaged with the process to retain their traditional knowledge and language. Examples of this were Māori participation in the early missions schools, contestation and resistance against many processes of Native schools and the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori.