As part of the investment into education infrastructure, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced the construction of 300 new classrooms and up to four new schools.
The hundreds of new rooms and four schools will create space for 6600 more students.
The first two projects for the new schools are in central Auckland and Pāpāmoa, with the remaining two projects to be announced in due course.
Hipkins said since 2017, the government had worked to fix the foundations of the country’s education system by upgrading every school in the country and funding over 2700 new classrooms to create 60,000 more student places.
“This new targeted funding will ease pressure on our education sector, helping to further fix years of underfunding, overcrowding and decay in schools and classrooms.
“Budget 2023 will build 300 more classrooms across the country, helping to ease existing pressures while accounting for future population growth.
“That creates 6600 new student spaces to ease the pressure on school rolls, both in the short term with the immediate establishment of 2200 places and in the long term, with funding for a further 4400 places to account for future roll growth.”
Hipkins said the targeted funding of $300 million from this year’s budget would fund this further to support the sector’s needs, with “$200 million for permanent roll growth, and $100 million to address shorter-term pressures on school rolls.
“An additional $100 million will be added to the education infrastructure funding pipeline, which will enable the construction of up to four new schools and new school expansions, the first two projects are in central Auckland and Papamoa, with the remaining two projects to be announced in due course.
“Adding to the 16 schools opened under this Government.”
Hipkins, along with Education Minister Jan Tinetti, made the announcement at a Wellington school this morning.
Tinetti said schools and classrooms that were modern, warm, dry and fit for purpose made teaching easier, kids more comfortable and helped to improve attendance and achievement.
“I have seen some of our ageing, damp and cold classrooms up close, in fact, I’ve taught in them. And it’s frankly not good enough. Previous governments may have been okay with that but we’re not.
“We want kids to look forward to coming to school and spending time in class, and parents to know their children are safe, well, and working to unlock their full potential.”
Budget 2023 would build on the government’s commitment to getting the basics right, Tinetti said.
“Having already invested over $2.1 billion over our time in Government into growing the school property portfolio, as well as $400 million across 2,054 schools in the School Investment Package and $150 million into the National School Redevelopment Programme.”
Further announcements would be made on Budget Day in relation to investment in education infrastructure to support the Kaupapa Māori and Māori medium education sectors, as part of a wider Māori Education Package in Budget 2023.
It is the final pre-Budget announcement ahead of Thursday when Finance Minister Grant Robertson will reveal how he plans to balance the cost of living pressures, avoid exacerbating inflation and pay a potentially $14.5 billion bill for Cyclone Gabrielle and flooding recovery - with a general election just five months away.
If Te Pāti Māori (polling at 3.5 per cent) won an electorate, it could form a 61-seat coalition Government with Labour and the Greens, while National and Act could only muster 59 seats according to the poll, following National last week ruling out working with Te Pāti Māori.
Te Pāti Māori leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer could be in the kingmaker position come the election, according to recent polls. Photo / Marty Melville
Hipkins, Robertson and an array of other ministers and local MPs yesterday unveiled almost $1b in cyclone recovery, including $475 million to rebuild road and rail links, about $100m to raise stopbanks and shore up flood protection assets and $35.4m to support the wellbeing of farmers, growers and stock in cyclone-damaged areas.
“Cyclone recovery is a core focus of this year’s Budget, and today’s package adds to the $890m already provided in a rolling maul of repair works and business support,” Hipkins said.
A central feature of yesterday’s package was education, with $116m to repair or rebuild the more than 500 schools damaged by the severe weather events that hit the North Island this year.
This, on top of today’s expected announcement, added to Labour’s $106m plan to reduce class sizes for Year 4-8 students as the party seeks to win points in a sector considered to be a key election battleground by former Education Minister Hipkins.
In March, National unveiled a “back to basics” education policy that included primary and intermediate schools being required to teach students for at least one hour a day on each of the topics of reading, writing and maths, with children being tested on them at least twice a year in a new version of the controversial National Standards.
While important, education would likely take a back seat in the Budget to measures addressing the high cost of living and servicing the sizeable cost of Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods.
Finance Minister and Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson alongside Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (right) and an array of other ministers and MPs in Hawke's Bay making a funding announcement. Photo / Warren Buckland
In a pre-Budget speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce last week, Robertson announced $4b of savings had been found to top up the 2023 Budget following his warning to ministers to trim spending if they wanted to progress new initiatives.
“The outcome of this exercise is that Budget 2023 will include $4 billion of savings and reprioritisations over the four-year forecast period,” he said.
Robertson said the cost of the cyclone recovery would be funded from existing spending and borrowing, rather than raising new taxes, something Hipkins had ruled out. He said this meant some ministers missing out on funding for pet projects in order to fund the recovery.
In another pre-Budget speech to some members of Auckland’s business community last week, Robertson signalled the “hard calls” that must be made by “central government, by local government, commercial businesses, communities, banks and insurance companies” as the Government prepares to tackle a bill of between $9b and $14.5b, according to Treasury’s most recent estimates.
