This was new spending but not new money. Education Minister Erica Stanford cut ineffective and inefficient educational programmes and reallocated the money.
There is more than $570 million of capital expenditure for school property. It will fund the construction of high-quality but traditional classrooms, not discredited “modern” learning environments. Standardised designs will cut the cost of each classroom by more than a quarter.
At the heart of Stanford’s ‘learning support budget,’ are several initiatives that aim to get young students off to a better start in education.
By 2028, there will be two million additional teacher aide hours available. Teacher aides support teachers in classrooms. Often, this involves giving individualised attention to children with high learning needs. That enables teachers to concentrate on whole-class teaching.
Funding for additional educational psychologists, speech language therapists and occupational therapists will support students facing learning challenges. It will also help take the pressure off their teachers.
There will be a new ‘maths check’ at Year 2 to identify students who need additional support to keep them on track with their maths learning. That support will be provided by 143 new full-time-equivalent specialist maths teachers for Year 0-6 students.
A new assessment tool aligned with the new, ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum will be rolled out. This will enable schools to track students’ learning progress and simplify reporting to parents. If schools were also required to report data from this tool to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry would have an easier time allocating resources to support struggling schools.
The new spending focusses squarely on primary-level education. At the launch event, secondary teachers’ union president Chris Abercrombie challenged Minister Stanford on that.
Stanford responded by promising that the 2026 budget would have more of a secondary focus. She also pointed out that ensuring far more students leave primary school at expected levels of literacy and numeracy would make secondary teachers’ jobs easier.
There will be challenges in successfully implementing many of these initiatives. But by smart spending, Minister Stanford is setting the stage for a smarter New Zealand.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
At the heart of Stanford’s ‘learning support budget,’ are several initiatives that aim to get young students off to a better start in education.
By 2028, there will be two million additional teacher aide hours available. Teacher aides support teachers in classrooms. Often, this involves giving individualised attention to children with high learning needs. That enables teachers to concentrate on whole-class teaching.
Funding for additional educational psychologists, speech language therapists and occupational therapists will support students facing learning challenges. It will also help take the pressure off their teachers.
There will be a new ‘maths check’ at Year 2 to identify students who need additional support to keep them on track with their maths learning. That support will be provided by 143 new full-time-equivalent specialist maths teachers for Year 0-6 students.
A new assessment tool aligned with the new, ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum will be rolled out. This will enable schools to track students’ learning progress and simplify reporting to parents. If schools were also required to report data from this tool to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry would have an easier time allocating resources to support struggling schools.
The new spending focusses squarely on primary-level education. At the launch event, secondary teachers’ union president Chris Abercrombie challenged Minister Stanford on that.
Stanford responded by promising that the 2026 budget would have more of a secondary focus. She also pointed out that ensuring far more students leave primary school at expected levels of literacy and numeracy would make secondary teachers’ jobs easier.
There will be challenges in successfully implementing many of these initiatives. But by smart spending, Minister Stanford is setting the stage for a smarter New Zealand.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
11 comments:
Only the unions are interested in the unions opinions. Barking at passing cars from the crowd whose petitioning has got the education system into this state.
Wouldn’t it be great if unions were removed from the education sector.
It never fails to crack me up when I see 6-year-olds being referred to as 'students' (the correct term in civilised English being 'pupils') and doing simple addition and subtraction as 'maths' (the proper term is 'arithmetic'). These silly usages are reflections of the American influence on educational thinking throughout the Anglosphere (and beyond). Given that country's performance in international comparisons, it would be smarter to use Finland or Singapore as role models.
I push back again at the NZ Initiative ramblings . Smart spending is NOT $100 million for a new maori language initiative when at best 50% maori turn up for school but the cost is the same for the curriculum.
There are 850,000 NZ pupils and students with 114,000 registered teachers in NZ . If the Teachers were being allocated proportionately because the smart maths (artithmetic ) shows that the ratio of teachers to students is 1--7.
Only the very small country schools have a 1-7 approx ratio.
Something is very wrong because 1-23 ratio as claimed by Min of Education etc is 2.6 million children in NZ ie 114,000 x 23 = 2.62 million. Smart spending would be addressing the Education issues NOT appeasing unions and Maori activism.
As per the de Fresne post of 10 May a staggering $100 million allocated primarily to the furtherance of indoctrination with stone age and later contrived hobby language te reo, with its accompanying insurgency proselytising propoganda.
I am recommending to parents in NZ who come from developing countries that if they wish their children to acquire a good basic education ,then they best return to their country of origin to obtain it.
Sitting cross-legged on a dirt floor chanting their times tables , learning spelling , grammar, handwriting, rote learning off one only arithmetic algorithm, treating the teacher with respect for his/her subject knowledge and learning disciplined behaviour and respect for other pupils would be so much better than what our current education in NZ would instill.
Also overseas, pupils would likely learn to have greater respect for education since it would be the doorway to a bright future and not scavenging at the rubbish tip since there would be no welfare if they failed to achieve and acquire a good job.
Of course there is also the model of what we used to have in NZ when we had a traditional education system that had most of the characteristics mentioned above. Current Progressive education , however , hates everything about that with a tangible venom.
Too much psychology , theory and nonsense from academia has destroyed our education. For me , the biggest problems are the entrenched ideologies that have been forced into student -teachers.
I notice that K. Burbarsinghe of the highly successful Michaela Community School in London found she could not employ the usual practicing teachers, from the English education system because they were so brainwashed into the methods of the current failing system
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More money thrown at education has actually reduced our standards this century. A revolution against the ideologies is needed.
instead.
>"[In developing countries], pupils would likely learn to have greater respect for education since it would be the doorway to a bright future and not scavenging at the rubbish tip since there would be no welfare if they failed to achieve and acquire a good job."
Unfortunately, primary schooling no longer imparts enough human capital anywhere in the world to get into formal employment other than at the very bottom end i.e. labouring for a pittance. The principal function of primary schooling is to get into junior high school - which in most LDCs (less developed countries) is still not universal but neither does it generally do much for employment prospects. The fundamental issue here is that the number of school leavers exceeds the number of vacancies in the formal employment sector (I keep using the word 'formal' as the informal sector remains the 'mass economy' in LDCs). So you end up with school leavers on the scrapheap and overqualified young people doing the simplest of jobs ('education inflation'/credentialism). India is often cited as an example of this - I recall the clerk at the zero-star dosshouse we stayed in in Calcutta telling me he had an MA in English Literature. For many young people, a better option after primary schooling is vocational education which equips them with marketable skills in the informal economy. But people at large continue to associate education with white-collar jobs. Some readers might like to have a look at my 1998 paper "The ‘myth of greater access’ in agrarian LDC education and science education: An alternative conceptual framework", International Journal of Educational Development, Vol. 18, pp. 63-71.
Here in NZ the primary schooling has no employment-preparatory function; it is supposed to equip youngsters with a battery of skills to take into high school. Those skills revolve mainly around literacy and numeracy. So for goodness sake let's make sure our primary teachers get their priorities right and desist from considering themselves to be social engineers.
I do suggest returning to their country of origin whether Africa, Asia or the Middle East to acquire a good basic education , which is what this article is on. Then coming back here. Another alternative is for parents to buy workbooks from their country of origin and work, at home through those, which are of higher standard then primary schools here. For , NZers I recommend homeschooling at primary level. Honestly you couldn't do worse .
I have just read an article on how our international maths scores . for example have our 15 year old students achieving in problem solving but failing in their knowledge of specifically arithmetic , which is the most needed for vocational training. This indicates a failing in primary education. Secondary education needs to rid itself of the Marxist ideologies and woke agendas .They are of no benefit to acquiring vocational skills at all. In fact a handicap. It also needs more advice on cognitive science in students' learning.
Every aspect of our primary education is , in my view a fiasco. My grandchild from Canada was two years ahead of those in his class , in every subject when he came to a NZ school . In Canada at least a fifth of the class were at his level.
Apparently , statistics predict in only about 15 years time our super annuation will have three times the number of recipients we have now which suggests it is going to become increasingly unsustainable. Especially if we have large numbers as well on other benefits. Kids need to be warned about this.
When I attended University in the 1970s only 5% of the school population attended. Now it is some ridiculously high percentage. Meanwhile we need more competent trades and technical people.l
Yes, there has been significant improvement planned in the core subjects, but I wonder what the good Dr would make of the following, and why a lot of money is being directed at what is virtue signalling, stone age nonsense that will not improve the futures of our children, and thereby the economic potential of our country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Vu7kKD48U
There should be no full immersion te reo schooling. Of course te reo could be an option in language courses, jut like Spanish, French etc
Where do those those students in full immersion te reo.get to learn English to a high enough standard to study at Uni or get good jobs. Full immersion te reo schooling is a handicap to most employment opportunities, yet this Govt is throwing millions of dollars at it. WHY
Anon at 9.16, it’s all part of the long term plan.
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