Operations grant funding pays for the day-to-day running of a school and is usually increased to account for inflation, and will increase by 1.3 per cent from the 2018 school year.
There was no increase this year, with the money instead handed out to schools based on the number of disadvantaged students they had. Many schools got less money than what they would have received had the funding been increased by inflation - a fact Labour highlighted throughout the year.
Budget 2017 sets aside $458.9 million of extra funding over the next four years, largely to meet growing student numbers.
Just over $60m will increase schools' operations grant funding by 1.3 per cent, with schools with high numbers of "at risk" students will get an extra 2.67 per cent in their at risk funding.
Early childhood providers will get an extra $386m of operating funding over four years, to help provide an extra 31,000 places as well as support "at risk" students.
• Special education
Another $63.3m over four years in extra funding will go to supporting students with special and additional learning needs, including more teacher aide hours.
The Incredible Years programme for parents and teachers with children with autism will get $4.2m over four years to increase support to children aged 2-5 years.
Opposition parties, in particular the Green Party, have called for much larger funding increases, highlighting stories of parents forced to pay for support from their own pocket.
Education Minister Nikki Kaye said the Government had increased funding for children with additional learning needs by about 33 per cent since 2009, and today's Budget would extend teacher aide support to an extra 625 students a year.
• New schools
A day after Labour attacked the Government over the number of schools at or approaching capacity, the Budget includes an extra $392.4m of capital funding and $64.1m of operating funding for new schools and classrooms.
The school growth spending increases from a budgeted $3.9m next year, to $29m in 2020/21.
"This will provide six new schools, two school expansions, the relocation of two special education schools, 11 new special education satellite units and around 305 new classrooms nationwide," Kaye said, saying further details would be announced in the coming months.
Much activity will be in Auckland, where immigration and intensification will see new student places increase by 21,000 by 2021. This month Kaye announced a new "metro" school model would be investigated for central Auckland, where school space was leased and existing parks and facilities were used, instead of new playing fields constructed.
• Tertiary education
Gets an extra $132.1m of new operating funding over four years, which includes $52.5m for the performance-based research fund that aims to increase high-quality research.
Tuition subsidy rates at qualification level three and above will increase, with the extra funding of $69.3m over four years part of the Government's push to get more students studying higher-level courses.
And the effort to get more international students to New Zealand will get an extra $6.8m in funding over four years. The accommodation benefit paid to eligible student allowance recipients will increase by up to $20 per week.
Ahead of the Budget the Government announced $5.2m to expand Teach First NZ and recruit new teachers.
Higher childcare fees likely
Higher childcare fees are likely to take back some of the Budget tax relief for families, the Early Childhood Council warns.
Council chief executive Peter Reynolds said the extra $10 million a year targeted to the most "at-risk" 20 per cent of children represented only a 0.5 per cent increase in total early childhood funding of $1.8 billion.
Consumer prices rose by 2.2 per cent in the year to March.
Unlike schools, the Budget has not provided any increase in base funding for the sector, forcing centres to increase fees to parents.
"It's not much of a pat on the back from the Government to get a bit of a tax break and then find that it's being taken out of your hand by childcare services because they are not getting any increase,": Reynolds said.
Primary teachers' union NZEI president Lynda Stuart said she was also "really disappointed" with the Budget, despite the 1.3 per cent increase in the operations grant.
"We would have expected 2 per cent," she said. "We're not taking that as a win at all."
She said the 2.67 per cent increase in targeted funding for about 135,000 children classed as "at risk" amounted to only about $3 per child per year on top of the $92 allocated to each at-risk child last year.
