Budget 2005: More money for education

The Government is promising more money for schools, early childhood education and a careful watch on tertiary spending.

The budget today revealed an increase in the overall education budget from $8 billion to $8.5 billion with Education Minister Trevor Mallard announcing a smattering of funding increases in different areas.

Mr Mallard promised an additional $169 million over four years to provide 420 more teachers and a $77.8 million increase in schools operational funding.

The recent agreement with primary school teachers provides for extra staff to allow teachers to have more non-class time by the end of this year and staffing improvements by 2008.

Early childhood education will also get another $152 million over four years.

This will allow early childhood education services to get $125 million over four years in funding increases of which $95 million is new money.

These increases will apply from July 1 and could be as high as 18 per cent in some areas, Mr Mallard said.

The overall increase also includes $28.4 million to be put into the early childhood education grants scheme to allow up to another 65 community based centres over the next four years.

Stung by scandals over wasteful spending in some tertiary education, Mr Mallard promised that an additional $341.3 million over four years would focus on quality and courses the Government wanted to fund.

Included in the spending would be $44.6 million over the period for expanding the modern apprenticeships scheme and industry training.

The performance based research fund for tertiary sector based research will be boosted by $75.5 million over the next four years. "Strategically relevant subject areas" such as tertiary courses in science, trades, technical subjects and agriculture will get $132 million from "budget 2005 and previous budgets", Mr Mallard said.

- NZPA