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Newsroom
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
What's good for kids who need learning support is good for all kids
Analysis: The announcement of $646 million for learning support was reported as Budget 2025's good news story, but it would be more accurate to describe it as a mixed bag. There could be a lot less smoke and mirrors about what is being provided and what has been discontinued to pay for the 'new and improved' learning support. It was helpful the Government acknowledged long-standing under-funding, real gaps in the provision of learning support that have led to despair and disruption. They had to. Several reviews over recent years have made it clear the learning support needed a radical overhaul. There were two items of genuinely hopeful news announced in the Budget in relation to learning support: increased funding for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme and continuation of early intervention services through to the end of Year 1. The Ongoing Resourcing Scheme is a strand of 'targeted funding' that came out of Special Education 2000, New Zealand's first systematic approach to inclusive education, aimed at children in primary and secondary schools assessed as high or very high needs. The problem has been that eligibility was applied for through a process called 'verification' for a contestable fund that was capped at one percent of children at any one time, regardless of the number of children who met the criteria. The result has been that some children who met the criteria were not 'verified' as eligible, and their school wouldn't get the funding. Which meant the schools were unable to meet the needs of the neurodivergent children and children with disabilities in their community, and consequently, their families. Urban legend and actual practice led to an understanding that the most effective way to secure any funding was to paint the worst picture possible of each child at the centre of the application; teachers and families find this process of 'deficit framing' traumatic and painful. The 'structural change to the ORS funding model' announced in Budget 2025 means every student who is verified as having extra learning needs will now be funded. Education Minister Erica Stanford estimated that another 1700 students would benefit from this change over the next four years. And the provision of early intervention services to the end of Year 1 should mean more services and give parents, families, teachers and schools greater confidence at the start of a child's primary education. Intervention services are crucial. They can include speech and language therapy, supporting families to better understand their child's behaviour, or visits from an education support worker to the child at school. Until now these services were only provided in early childhood education. The Government extending it to Year 1 is a much-needed step in the right direction. Hopefully the result of both changes in policy will mean more schools will be able to accept a neurodivergent or disabled child at the start of primary school. Less certain is what the Budget is actually promising in terms of increased funding for teacher aides in schools. It says: 'Key investments include substantial annual increases to teacher aide hours, building up to over two million additional teacher aide hours per year, from 2028.' But what does two million extra hours mean in the real world? Currently teacher aide funding is part of the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. If a child meets the criteria for 'high needs' or 'very high needs', the school gets some additional support in the form of itinerant teachers, as well as teacher aide hours. The greatest amount of support is for those considered to have 'very high needs', funding for up to 20 hours from a teacher aide. If schools need teacher aide time in the classroom or other parts of the school, the school must fund those hours. Currently, teacher aides are usually part time. If they work full time, they might work up to 30 hours per week in a primary or secondary school, for up to 40 weeks a year. The maths suggests the Budget is promising an additional 1667 teacher aides. But New Zealand has 2,500 primary, intermediate and secondary schools. That means the Budget allows for fewer than one additional aide per school. This is far short of the primary teacher union's call for a teacher aide in every classroom. This is a profession dominated by women, and their average hourly pay is $28. It is more than ironic that the funding used for this meagre increase in the Budget likely comes from the changes to the Equal Pay Act announced immediately before the Budget's release. There have been a number of reviews of learning support particularly in high needs, which have come to similar conclusions. Research conducted by the New Zealand Council of Education Research found that the process of accessing funding was difficult, poor information was provided, and funding was often made available too late and was too little. Work carried out by the NZ Educational Institute primary teacher union found that for every seven children who had some support, another three had unmet needs. We still don't have any idea of what the promised 'overview' of the system will look like, but we would reasonably expect that it will draw on previous work that had already been done on it. The minister and Ministry of Education still claim to be in support of developing an inclusive education system. We've yet to see how this year's Budget supports this aspiration. Another example of reprioritisation is $30m to be spent on enlarging specialist day schools. On June 5 the minister announced: 'We know many parents of children with high needs want the option of a specialist education setting … This investment is about giving families more choice and confidence their children can learn in the environment that best supports them.' At least some of this funding will come from the disestablishment of the teachers who support literacy development, which is estimated to save $39m. Our research, and research from the Education Review Office, has repeatedly shown that families with disabled children have not been given genuine access to the same schools available to children who don't have disabilities. There has been a constant undermining of an inclusive education system. Concerns have long been expressed the safety of students in segregated settings such as that reported in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care which, as reported in Newsroom, includes case studies and comments relating to abuse suffered by people at specialist residential schools. Numerous evaluations of the three residential specialist schools in New Zealand have noted the schools were funded as if they were fully enrolled (84 students) not on the actual number of students (in the 30s). Every other school in New Zealand is funded on the actual enrolment figures. Our research has clearly demonstrated the value of inclusive education, for neurodiverse children and children with disabilities, and also in building an inclusive society. Inclusive education gives everyone the chance to get to know and be comfortable with the variety of members of our communities. What is good for those who need learning support is good for everyone going through our school system.
Scoop
23-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Budget 2025: ‘Underperforming' Areas Cut To Pay For ‘Seismic Shift' In Education
The 2025 Budget puts the handbrake on annual growth in education spending, as past splurges on school buildings run out in the next few years. , Education correspondent The 2025 Budget puts the handbrake on annual growth in education spending, as past splurges on school buildings run out in the next few years. Despite that, spending on teaching and learning continues to grow with what the government describes as a 'seismic shift' in support for children with disabilities. Education Minister Erica Stanford said new education initiatives in the Budget totalled $2.5 billion over four years, though about $614m of that total was reprioritised from 'underperforming' initiatives. The government's total spend on early childhood and school education would grow by roughly $400m to $19.85b in 2025-26, but drop to $19b and $18.9b in subsequent years. The future decline was partly due to the fact the $240m a year free school lunch programme, Ka Ora, Ka Ako, was only funded until the end of 2026, and to a $600m drop in capital funding by 2027-28 and beyond. The Budget revealed education's worst-kept secret – the axing of the major school-clustering scheme, Kahui Ako, to help bankroll a $720m increase for learning support. The increase included $266m to extend the early intervention service from early childhood through to the end of Year 1 of primary school, including employing 560 more early intervention teachers and specialists and helping an additional 4000 children. It also included $192m over three years to provide learning support coordinators in 1250 more primary schools, $122m to meet increased demand for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme for students with the highest needs, and $90m to build 25 new satellite classrooms for specialist schools. Stanford said the government was building up to adding 2 million extra teacher aide hours by 2028. The other big education initiative in the Budget was $298m for curriculum, nearly half of it targeted to maths and literacy, and about $76m for a new standardised reading, writing and maths test for schools. Other areas of spending included $672m for property, $150m for the teaching workforce, $104m for Māori education, and $140m for attendance, which was announced prior to the Budget. School operations grants received a 1.5 percent boost at a cost of $79m per full year, or $121.7m over the four years. The Budget total included $3b a year for early childhood education, with a 0.5 percent increase to early childhood service subsidies. The Budget included an 11 percent increase to government subsidies for private schools, raising the annual spend by $4.6m to $46.2m a year. Associate Education Minister David Seymour said the annual spend on private schools had not changed since 2010, when they had about 27,600 pupils – and they now had more than 33,000. The annual spend on charter schools also doubles next year to $57m, most of it for those operating as secondary schools, with the increase largely due to the drawdown of funding for setting up the schools. The Budget showed the government expected to sign contracts for 30 to 50 charter schools in the next 12 months. The cuts The Budget included a myriad of cuts to redirect funding to other education initiatives. 'We have assessed underspends and reprioritised initiatives that are underperforming or lack clear evidence that they're delivering intended outcomes,' Stanford said. The biggest cut was ending the Kahui Ako scheme, which paid about 4000 teachers extra to lead improvements in groups of schools, resulting in a reprioritisation of $375m over four years. The Budget repurposed spending of $72m over four years on programmes for kura kaupapa and Māori-medium education. However, half of it came from a contingency fund that was superseded by another source of money, meaning the sector was not suffering a cut from that part of the change. It also reprioritised $50m from schools' regional response fund, about $40m from resource teachers of literacy, and $14m from resource teachers of learning and behaviour in secondary schools. Also repurposed was about $37m from underspent funding on primary schools and $12m from the Positive Behaviour for Learning scheme for schools. A new $24m per year spend on support for the maths curriculum was bankrolled from a $28m a year spend on teacher professional development. Also cut was $2.6m a year for the Reading Together programme, $1.6m a year for study support centres and about $4m from the greater Christchurch renewal programme. A further $2m a year was saved by cutting a classroom set-up and vandalism grant for schools. The Budget said the net five-year impact of the funding cuts and increases was $1.69b. Last year's Budget reprioritised $429m over four years. Tertiary funding rises The Budget boosted the government's subsidies for enrolments in tertiary courses next year by 3 percent – but only in some subject areas such as science, teacher education and health – at a total cost of $213m over four years. Enrolments in science, technology, engineering and maths (the STEM subjects) at degree-level and above would attract a further 1.75 percent, increase at a cost of $64m. The Budget also included $111m over four years to cover expected enrolment growth in 2025 and 2026. The government said it also proposed allowing tertiary institutes to raise the fees they charged domestic students by up to 6 percent next year 'to further help providers manage cost pressures and maintain quality delivery'. Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds said there would also be funding for two years starting next year to help polytechnics transition to independence from mega-institute Te Pukenga. The figure was not specified. There would also be $30m a year for the new Industry Skills Boards, which would replace Workforce Development Councils, plus one-off funding of $10m to help with establishment costs. Overall tertiary spending would total $3.8b next year.
Scoop
22-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Budget 2025: 'Underperforming' Areas Cut To Pay For 'Seismic Shift' In Education
, Education correspondent The 2025 Budget puts the handbrake on annual growth in education spending, as past splurges on school buildings run out in the next few years. Despite that, spending on teaching and learning continues to grow with what the government describes as a "seismic shift" in support for children with disabilities. Education Minister Erica Stanford said new education initiatives in the Budget totalled $2.5 billion over four years, though about $614m of that total was reprioritised from "underperforming" initiatives. The government's total spend on early childhood and school education would grow by roughly $400m to $19.85b in 2025-26, but drop to $19b and $18.9b in subsequent years. The future decline was partly due to the fact the $240m a year free school lunch programme, Ka Ora, Ka Ako, was only funded until the end of 2026, and to a $600m drop in capital funding by 2027-28 and beyond. The Budget revealed education's worst-kept secret - the axing of the major school-clustering scheme, Kahui Ako, to help bankroll a $720m increase for learning support. The increase included $266m to extend the early intervention service from early childhood through to the end of Year 1 of primary school, including employing 560 more early intervention teachers and specialists and helping an additional 4000 children. It also included $192m over three years to provide learning support coordinators in 1250 more primary schools, $122m to meet increased demand for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme for students with the highest needs, and $90m to build 25 new satellite classrooms for specialist schools. Stanford said the government was building up to adding 2 million extra teacher aide hours by 2028. The other big education initiative in the Budget was $298m for curriculum, nearly half of it targeted to maths and literacy, and about $76m for a new standardised reading, writing and maths test for schools. Other areas of spending included $672m for property, $150m for the teaching workforce, $104m for Māori education, and $140m for attendance, which was announced prior to the Budget. School operations grants received a 1.5 percent boost at a cost of $79m per full year, or $121.7m over the four years. The Budget total included $3b a year for early childhood education, with a 0.5 percent increase to early childhood service subsidies. The Budget included an 11 percent increase to government subsidies for private schools, raising the annual spend by $4.6m to $46.2m a year. Associate Education Minister David Seymour said the annual spend on private schools had not changed since 2010, when they had about 27,600 pupils - and they now had more than 33,000. The annual spend on charter schools also doubles next year to $57m, most of it for those operating as secondary schools, with the increase largely due to the drawdown of funding for setting up the schools. The Budget showed the government expected to sign contracts for 30 to 50 charter schools in the next 12 months. The cuts The Budget included a myriad of cuts to redirect funding to other education initiatives. "We have assessed underspends and reprioritised initiatives that are underperforming or lack clear evidence that they're delivering intended outcomes," Stanford said. The biggest cut was ending the Kahui Ako scheme, which paid about 4000 teachers extra to lead improvements in groups of schools, resulting in a reprioritisation of $375m over four years. The Budget repurposed spending of $72m over four years on programmes for kura kaupapa and Māori-medium education. However, half of it came from a contingency fund that was superseded by another source of money, meaning the sector was not suffering a cut from that part of the change. It also reprioritised $50m from schools' regional response fund, about $40m from resource teachers of literacy, and $14m from resource teachers of learning and behaviour in secondary schools. Also repurposed was about $37m from underspent funding on primary schools and $12m from the Positive Behaviour for Learning scheme for schools. A new $24m per year spend on support for the maths curriculum was bankrolled from a $28m a year spend on teacher professional development. Also cut was $2.6m a year for the Reading Together programme, $1.6m a year for study support centres and about $4m from the greater Christchurch renewal programme. A further $2m a year was saved by cutting a classroom set-up and vandalism grant for schools. The Budget said the net five-year impact of the funding cuts and increases was $1.69b. Last year's Budget reprioritised $429m over four years. Tertiary funding rises The Budget boosted the government's subsidies for enrolments in tertiary courses next year by 3 percent - but only in some subject areas such as science, teacher education and health - at a total cost of $213m over four years. Enrolments in science, technology, engineering and maths (the STEM subjects) at degree-level and above would attract a further 1.75 percent, increase at a cost of $64m. The Budget also included $111m over four years to cover expected enrolment growth in 2025 and 2026. The government said it also proposed allowing tertiary institutes to raise the fees they charged domestic students by up to 6 percent next year "to further help providers manage cost pressures and maintain quality delivery". Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds said there would also be funding for two years starting next year to help polytechnics transition to independence from mega-institute Te Pukenga. The figure was not specified. There would also be $30m a year for the new Industry Skills Boards, which would replace Workforce Development Councils, plus one-off funding of $10m to help with establishment costs. Overall tertiary spending would total $3.8b next year.
Newsroom
22-05-2025
- Business
- Newsroom
‘Major trade-offs' allow for learning support boost
Erica Stanford has delivered a $2.5 billion education Budget, with $646 million for learning support offset by $614m in cuts to 'underperforming' programmes. Experts and educators say the investment in a sector crying out for help is welcomed, but question whether it's truly transformational – and at what cost. Stanford is describing this as the 'most significant investment in learning support in a generation', but those in the sector note that it's only been possible because of significant reprioritisation and pay equity changes expected to hit those in the education workforce. It comes the same week as a new report painted a picture of a system at breaking point, with almost every educator describing the situation in classrooms as dire. One principal even said they feared a child would die on their watch because of the lack of supervision for children with additional and complex needs. Between 15 percent and 20 percent of people are neurodivergent, but only 6-7 percent of students receive publicly funded learning support, with Māori, Pasifika, English second-language speakers and those attending rural and high equity index schools most affected by the underfunding and fragmented system. Decades of reviews have left successive governments with no doubt as to the problems plaguing the under-resourced system which is supposed to provide timely, appropriate support to neurodivergent children, or those with disabilities, health needs or trauma. And under-resourcing, paired with a critical workforce shortage, mean schools often name complex and behavioural needs as the number one challenge they face. The learning support budget included $266m to extend the early intervention service through to the end of Year 1, which was expected to fund more than 560 additional full-time equivalent early intervention teachers and specialists. This should allow for 4000 children with additional needs to receive support for their transition to primary school. That funding would also cover an additional 900,000 teacher aide hours a year, phasing in from 2028 – an admission of the workforce shortage. But Stanford said she was confident they would find the teachers needed from the now cut Kāhui Ako programme, which would release about 600 teachers into the workforce. There was also $122m to meet increased demand for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme, for students with high and complex needs. This funding was geared towards getting such support to an additional 1700 learners over the next four years. The money also included a commitment to get learning support coordinators into every primary school in the country, with an additional 300,000 students benefiting from this uplift. There was also extra in the Budget for speech and language therapists, targeted professional development for teacher aides, additional educational psychologists and learning support satellite classrooms and necessary changes to school buildings. 'The key message for parents today is we've got your back, not only if your children need help in maths or literacy, but also if they have additional learning needs. This is the largest investment into learning support in a generation, and it will be transformational,' Stanford said. Meanwhile, Nicola Willis told Newsroom she and Stanford were 'in cahoots' on this one. Willis had personal experience with additional learning needs, and said early intervention and guaranteed support for children who needed it would make a significant difference. She had seen situations where children had struggled to get a diagnosis or hadn't received the support they needed and it affected that child, the school and, in some cases, it had torn families apart. Willis said the early intervention services were a no-brainer in terms of her focus on social investment. Getting support to children and students as soon as possible would help them fulfil their potential. Dr Sarah Aiono, author of the recent Beyond Capacity report and a former complex needs specialist teacher, told Newsroom there were encouraging aspects of the learning support investments that showed the minister had heard 'the sector's consistent calls for better support'. Though the roadmap outlined a long-term, staged expansion of services, the sector's need was urgent and immediate. Meanwhile, a report released by NZEI Te Riu Roa union last month estimated $2.5b was needed for learning support in the next five years. Moreover, these 'promising steps' fell short of a 'true reset', she said. It was also important to temper the language that this was 'transformational' or 'the single largest investment in a generation', she said. Much of the funding in this package had been reprioritised, not newly allocated – meaning some roles in the sector would be lost. Within the savings section of the Budget was $614m of cuts and reprioritisations. There were 22 initiatives listed in the savings section, including under-spending on charter schools and the Kāhui Ako programme. Among the cut programmes was $13m from resource teachers for learning and behaviour for Years 11-13. In its documents, Treasury noted there had been no evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme and there was 'minimal assurances' on what it is used for. 'The funding will be reinvested in learning support to deliver targeted multi-tiered, in-school learning support for students with additional needs.' Aiono and the NZEI teachers' union noted the uplift also came along with the changes to pay equity, which directly affected learning support staff and other educators. 'These are significant trade-offs that should not be glossed over,' Aiono said. This week's big spend on education marked one of the Government's top priority areas, but it was somewhat overshadowed by the Government's pay equity changes and leaks. Late Budget eve, the Government was granted an urgent injunction to stop RNZ publishing a Budget-sensitive document, which the Attorney-General's office said contained 'commercially sensitive information that would prejudice the Government's ability to engage effectively in collective bargaining'. Teachers are in negotiations about pay increases, with the Public Service Commissioner taking the reins on collective bargaining in May. Ahead of Thursday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis confirmed the Budget would have money set aside for the teacher pay settlement. But these figures were not revealed as they could be seen to undermine the Government's ability to negotiate with the unions. The bargaining – as well as at least four leaks of Budget-sensitive education material in the lead-up to Thursday – were taking place against a backdrop of strikes and protests from teachers, union leaders and Ministry of Education staff over pay. Teaching is one of the sectors affected by the Government's pay equity changes, with a claim covering 95,000 early childhood, primary and secondary teachers being wiped as part of the overhaul. Unions expect secondary teachers would be particularly disadvantaged by the changes to the thresholds in the new Equal Pay Act, as the workforce had to prove it was at least 70 percent female (a shift from the earlier 60 percent threshold). Though early childhood and primary teachers easily met this bar, secondary teachers didn't. At the same time, union pay equity experts said they thought the new changes could make bringing a future claim 'virtually impossible' because of the new rules governing the use of comparators as well as the need to prove a claim's merit at the outset (rather than 'arguability').
NZ Herald
22-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Budget 2025: East Coast MP Dana Kirkpatrick highlights $219m for local roads
'Firstly, there is the extra money allocated for fixing local roads – $219 million over three years for councils in Gisborne and the many on our eastern seaboard. 'This is critical because as we know, many of the roads destroyed in the cyclone are still to be fixed, such as those up the Coast and in our rural areas.' Kirkpatrick said the Budget had delivered 'a massive support package' to give children the best opportunity that the power of education could bring, including: Two million additional teacher aide hours each year from 2028. Every school will have support to co-ordinate learning support requirements ranging for 0.2FTE to 1.0 FTE. Extending the early intervention support for children who need speech language therapy beyond the limit of 5-year-olds. Expanding the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme so every child receives the support they need. Record investment had bee made in health – $1.37 billion for Health NZ baseline funding to do more hips, knees, urgent care around the country and telehealth. '$1b for hospitals also helps,' she said. 'This is the biggest issue in our community right now and one that I get more emails and messages about than anything else. 'We are focused on putting the patient at the centre of the health system and we are looking at a record investment in health of more than $30b.' Kirkpatrick said there was much in the Budget for businesses. 'Take the Invest NZ fund, which will allow anyone who buys a new asset to claim a tax rebate of 20% of the cost of that asset off their tax return. 'This is outstanding policy that helps businesspeople get ahead, invest more, hire more people and grow their businesses, which is absolutely necessary in our current environment.' Kirkpatrick said the forecast for getting out of debt had reduced. 'We are using savings to fund new initiatives where we can.' Kirkpatrick said the Budget had a prudent approach that balanced the need for social investment, growing the economy and investing in the core business of health, education and crime reduction.
