Te Kapunga Matemoana "Koro" Dewes (7 April 1930 â 17 August 2010) was a kaumÃÂtua of the NgÃÂti Porou iwi of New Zealand. He was a pioneer of MÃÂori education and an advocate for the MÃÂori language.
Dewes attended Horoera Native Primary School and won a scholarship to Wesley College, where he became dux and head prefect. He went to Ardmore Teachers' College (now part of the University of Auckland) in 1949 and taught at Tikitiki District High School and St. Stephen's Anglican MÃÂori boarding school. From 1962 to 1966, he lectured in the University Extension Department (adult education) of the University of Auckland, and then was appointed as a lecturer in MÃÂori language at the Victoria University of Wellington. At Wellington, he helped to extend courses to allow students to complete a degree major in MÃÂori language. He wrote a master's thesis on the work of composer Henare Waitoa, which was submitted in MÃÂori in 1972. The title of the master's thesis was NgÃÂ waiata haka a HÃÂnare Waitoa o NgÃÂti Porou (modern dance-poetry by HÃÂnare Waitoa of NgÃÂti Porou). He was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature (DLitt) by Victoria in 2002.
Dewes returned to the East Cape area in 1976, where in 1987 he helped form Te Runanga o Ngati Porou, an organisation which has championed and facilitated a strategic vision for the NgÃÂti Porou.
MÃÂori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said Dewes "was a partisan rather than a diplomat" who "has been an inspiration for language activists from every iwi, and for indigenous peoples around the world."