Latest news with #NZEI
1News
22-05-2025
- Business
- 1News
Budget 2025: $646 million boost for student learning support
Budget 2025 has delivered a $646 million boost for learning support. Increased support for students with conditions affecting their learning is the issue schools have called for greater government investment in year after year. Education Minister Erica Stanford said today that, across different initiatives, the Budget will provide funding for more than an additional 2 million teacher aide hours per year by 2028. Stand out investments in Budget 2025 include $266 million to extend the Early Intervention Service so Year 1 students can access a range of supports such as speech language therapists and psychologists. The service currently stops when a child turns five. Funding for an additional 560 staff has been provided. The Ongoing Resource Scheme for students with the highest learning needs in the country has received a cash injection, with $122 million in funding to meet growing demand. Funding has historically been restricted, with access to around 1% of students, though the number has been steadily growing. Instead of the set funding model, there will now be increases in funding over the next four years. Students who already qualify are expected to receive additional support such as increased teacher aide hours, and an additional 1700 students are expected to qualify in the next four years. Learning support coordinators will also be supporting all primary and intermediate schools by 2028, with a $192 million investment. The coordinators assess the needs of students and help them access support services. Only one tranche had been rolled out in New Zealand previously, increasing inequity in support among schools. Contingency funding will also be in place for the construction of 25 learning support classrooms at schools and 365 property modifications at existing schools, with a $90 million investment over four years. New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa, the primary teacher's union, recently called for an additional $2.5 billion investment in learning support over five years in a report. Its recommendation for professional development for teacher aides has been answered with $3 million in funding between now and 2028. Primary principals and NZEI have previously called for a teacher aide to be funded for every classroom. Kāhui Ako – which is funding for schools in a geographical area to become a network that collaborates and shares best practice initiatives and guidance – has been cut, with $375 million over four years instead set to be spent on learning support. Resource Teacher: Māori and Resource Teacher: Literacy roles have been cut after the Education Minister proposed this earlier this year. Feedback from the sector on this proposal wasn't released publicly before this funding decision was announced. NZEI, affected teachers, and other education leaders called for funding for these support and specialist roles to continue, saying they helped students learn to read and supported Māori staff to deliver the curriculum and assess student learning. Less money has been spent on Associate Education Minister David Seymour's charter school reintroduction than was set aside in last year's Budget. Around $4 million will be spent in education elsewhere. Apart from the Resource Teacher: Māori roles, the Wharekura Expert Teachers role has also been disestablished. The Māori Education package of $36.1 million has been redirected into other Māori education initiatives such as the curriculum and support for teachers to develop Te Reo Māori skills. A further $36.1 million allocated for 2023 Māori education collective bargaining settlements has been reprioritised. The Budget summary states this contingency funding was overestimated.
RNZ News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Budget: Schools expecting more support for disabled students, ECEs and universities less optimistic
Berhampore School principal Mark Potter. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen Schools are expecting more support for disabled students in this week's government Budget. Education Minister Erica Stanford has told the sector to expect a "learning support Budget" and leaks show she has been planning to can a major education initiative to bankroll at least some of the spending. Learning support has been a consistent pressure point for schools. This week a report warned students could die because of a lack of resourcing and last month teacher union the Educational Institute Te Riu Roa urged the government to boost spending on learning support by nearly $800 million a year. Berhampore School principal and NZEI immediate past president Mark Potter was once rebuked for using property funding to assist pupils with disabilities. He told RNZ learning support funding was what schools needed the most from the Budget, but his hopes were not high. "We hear a lot of talk about there being something about learning support in here, but we've got decades of just talk. Just shifting a bit of resource from here to there is not what we need. What we really need is some serious, genuine long-term investment like the military just got, but we've been waiting longer," he said. Three separate leaks, two to RNZ and one to the Labour Party, indicated at least some of the money for learning support would come from axing the Kāhui Ako scheme, which paid 4000 teachers extra to guide training and collaboration in groups of schools. That would divert as much as $118m a year to help for disabled learners. Kāhui Ako had strong support from some principals but Waikato Principals Association president Lesley Lomas said there was only so much money to go around and learning support was a big issue. "It's a priority for all of us. We have consistently been asking for support in this area so we realise there's not a new bit of pie, we probably have to make some adjustments from one area of the education sector to another," she said. The government had already announced extra funding in other problem areas for schools. Truancy would receive an extra $140m over four years, nearly half of it taken from other education schemes, and maths teaching would receive $100m, also over four years. In the early learning sector, Early Childhood Council chief executive Simon Laube said centres were closing because of the gap between government subsidies and the cost of running an early childhood service. "Areas where their families are struggling are not doing very well. It's very hard to run a viable centre in any community where the families can't contribute anything to make up the shortfall in funding to make some of these policies work," he said. Laube said the council's members were nervous about the Budget and were hoping for an increase in government subsidies and no surprises. At the other end of the education system, universities feared a temporary four percent funding increase designed to help them through a tough couple of years would be allowed to lapse. Chris Whelan from Universities New Zealand last year said that would be catastrophic . This week he told RNZ it would hurt, but universities were prepared. "We've been given high-level messages not to expect much or all of it to continue. Probably the best thing is having those early messages meant that universities have been able to take decisions with that in mind. It's going to be tough if it's not maintained but universities have now built it into some of their assumptions. We've essentially had six to eight months to prepare for it," he said. Meanwhile, the government wanted to stand up a new industry training system and some individual polytechnics from the remains of mega-institute Te Pukenga next year. Whether there was enough in Te Pukenga's kitty to bankroll that or if it would require additional funding was a question the Budget should answer. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
School support staff protest outside Erica Stanford's Auckland office for more pay
School staff gathering outside Education Minster Erica Stanford's office in Browns Bay. Photo: RNZ/ Victor Waters Dozens of people are gathered outside the electorate office of Erica Stanford in northern Auckland this morning. The group are protesting recent pay equity changes and calling for increased pay for school support staff ahead of the budget next week. They were organised by the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) union and plan to hand an open letter to Stanford. NZEI has told RNZ it is negotiating collective agreements with the Ministry of Education which has offered zero-percent pay increases. School staff gathering outside Education Minster Erica Stanford's office in Browns Bay, Auckland. Photo: RNZ/Victor Waters Jan Monds, a teacher aide at Knighton Normal School in Hamilton, joined the protest and said support staff felt undervalued. "I'd love Minister Stanford to come in and hoist, toilet, tube feed a child, and deal with medically fragile children, deal with those that are in Year 6 and are struggling to read and write," she said. "I think she may get a better sense of what we do." Monds said support staff needed more funding to meet tamariki's needs. The recent pay equity changes were a kick in the stomach, she said. "It's just another means by which the government have let us know that they really don't value us nor the work we do," Monds said. Stanford has been approached for comment.
NZ Herald
13-05-2025
- Health
- NZ Herald
Principals urge more support for students with post-Covid challenges
'This has been steadily increasing since the end of Covid, when we had a huge number of children coming into school that had not had early childhood because of the lockdowns. 'That was overwhelming then, and it continues to be overwhelming.' She said there's been an increase in dysregulated behaviour and undiagnosed needs. 'It's more prevalent in those children who have not had early childhood education, they've had no transition at all. 'Our 5-year-olds are coming to school with oral language so low, we can't communicate with them.' 'These children are swamping classrooms, and they are overwhelming teachers who quite frankly, are already burdened with a great deal of change at pace by this current Government.' The Ministry of Education said it's aware of the impacts of Covid-19 on learning and progress. Operations and integration leader Sean Teddy said there are a range of services available for children experiencing behavioural and communication challenges. 'This includes our Ministry-delivered behaviour and communication service and support provided through the Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour service,' he said. Teddy added additional guidance on social and emotional learning for teachers is online. Otene said this isn't enough. 'This Government and previous Governments have not yet nailed how to support and resource schools adequately for learning support,' she said. 'It starts when those children are at early childhood, it does not start when they're at primary school. 'There needs to be support for transitioning between early childhood and primary school.' A report from education union, NZEI, recommends the Government to invest $2.5 billion in learning support services by 2030 to stop children in need sitting on waiting lists. Otene said schools across New Zealand are grappling with the diverse needs of children without these services. 'This is an embarrassment for our country, the fact that we're not looking after our most vulnerable children, resourcing their needs.' She said there's simply not enough specialists, psychologists and people to help. 'Learning support is the most important and critical issue that principals are dealing with right now. And we are really hoping that this budget, that we see an investment in learning support.' Canterbury University child and family psychology lecturer Sarah Whitcombe-Dobbs said children born during Covid-19 haven't had the same development opportunities as others. Advertise with NZME. 'It hugely depends on that immediate microsystem environment,' she said. 'So it depends on the parents or caregivers or grandparents or other whanau that children are living with, and the quality of that environment.' She said there's clear evidence that increased time on screens is associated with poor oral language development, which is a big predictor of long-term education outcomes. 'During Covid there were a lot more parents needing to use screens more to entertain their children, but for children whose language is just emerging right from birth, there's no developmental benefit to being on a screen," she said. 'We know that there can be some harm because they're not getting that exposure to reciprocal conversation.' Whitcombe-Dobbs said early intervention would help kids struggling from these experiences - but support services are lacking. 'If the Government chose to invest more into the supports for early childhood, particularly in specialist services, then we would see improvements.'
NZ Herald
09-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Protest in Tauranga over pay equity changes
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden said the urgency was to allow all claims to be considered under the same thresholds. In Red Square, Tauranga care and support worker and E Tū union member Tanya Oomen said, 'We've had enough.' She said the Government was 'cutting women's pay without any warning, without consultation'. 'National has forced through a law change that will take money directly out of women's pockets across New Zealand.' She said National was doing it to 'make their Budget add up' and was turning its back on the thousands of women who fought for equal pay, 'all to fund tax breaks for tobacco companies and landlords '. Oomen described herself as a care and support worker in the disability sector, working in a house with six adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. She said she did 24-hour shifts, only half of those hours double-staffed. She was expected to sleep on-site, care for her charges, cook, clean, take them to activities and appointments, keep them connected to family and friends, and check their finances. 'I'm more than an arse-wiper. Much more. 'We have been fighting so hard and for so long, and all we want is a decent wage for the hard work that we do.' New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) member Conor Fraser said it was 'gutting to see how quickly changes can be made to an Equal Pay Act that has been fought for for decades'. Fraser said he was part of a pay equity settlement last March. 'I've been part of a team that went through the process of understanding what the legislation is and how you enforce it and how you correct inequities that have existed for a long period of time. 'For others to not have that opportunity, it's wild.' Mount Maunganui Labour Party member Heidi Tidmarsh organised the protest, led by Labour Party list MP Jan Tinetti. NZEI staff member Kirsty McCully said the change had added barriers to women being able to achieve pay justice. 'It takes us back to before 1972 when the Equal Pay Act was first brought into force. 'I think what it really does is negates a whole lot of amazing work [by] campaigners like Kristine Bartlett. McCully works with early childhood teachers and as a result of this change, 93,000 teachers have had their pay equity claim set back. Advertise with NZME. 'It's devastating, and it really is a kick in the guts. 'It makes the idea that we can achieve wage justice almost impossible.' McCully said many women were already struggling in the cost-of-living crisis and trying to hold their families together. She said the Government was saying $3 billion a year for landlords was affordable but $1.7b in wage justice for women is not. 'The Government's making decisions that impact on a small number of the wealthy to privilege their interests over the interests of the vast workers who have had wage injustice for generations, and now that's going to be entrenched.' On a visit to Tauranga on Friday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his Government is 'very, very committed to pay equity, and avoiding and eliminating sex-based discrimination'. 'But we also need to make sure we have one system that is robust, that's workable, that's sustainable and actually focused on the core purpose of the legislation, that is about eliminating sex-based discrimination, rather than bringing in broader labour market conditions you often see in a bargaining round.' Luxon said individuals and unions could still apply to have pay equity claims processed and the Government had put money aside to deal with these in future. He said the changes aimed to encourage more specific pay-equity claims. 'We've seen claims that have up to 90 different occupations, when we see comparisons between fisheries officers and librarians. 'What we need to have is a hierarchy of comparators to make sure the system is more workable and gives people more certainty.' He described the Opposition framing of the review as 'a little bit disingenuous' and said saving money was not the primary reason for the change.
