Tolley promises 'hard' fight for school funding

Anne Tolley told school principals that there would not be a great deal of 'new money' for the education sector in the next few years. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Two weeks before the Government's Budget release, Education Minister Anne Tolley has told school principals she is "fighting hard" in Cabinet for education funding - but indicated there won't be much new money.

Mrs Tolley spoke at a Auckland Secondary School Principals Association meeting today, where principals raised concerns that schools faced funding cuts in their contracts.

She emphasised that the Government's priority was to find something productive for all young people, particularly school leavers - through alternative education, trades academies, crossovers between high schools and polytechnics, and academies run by the Defence Force.

But she said she had had to push hard in Cabinet last year to get new money - a $300 million boost in the 2009/2010 Budget, bringing the total for education to $10.8 billion a year.

"I will continue to fight hard for funding for the education sector," Mrs Tolley said.

"This Government is serious about education but the next few years will not see a great deal of new money.

"We have to be very careful about what our priorities are."

One principal complained to Mrs Tolley that his school was seeing a 7 per cent cut in its funding, and that at a recent meeting it was revealed that all but one school there had suffered cuts.

"Post-recession we could've accepted no increase, but cuts..." he said.

Mrs Tolley replied that any cuts were because of a formula written into a multi-year agreement, established years ago.

"I don't pretend to understand the formulas ... but it was not a conscious decision to take money out. It's something that was decided a few years ago that have now come into effect," she said.

Another principal questioned a policy Mrs Tolley had suggested, to adjust funding to schools mid-year if they had lost students. His school would struggle to hire or fire teachers mid-year, he said.

Mrs Tolley explained that the Government wanted to blur the lines between secondary, tertiary and alternative education providers - for example by having a student spend two days a week at high school, two at a polytechnic and one at a workplace apprenticeship.

Funding needed to be flexible if students were to be moved around different providers, she said.

It would also be an incentive for schools to keep students from leaving, she said.

Mrs Tolley said details of how to involve alternative providers in secondary education would be released in August or September.

A spokesman for Mrs Tolley said any cuts schools experienced would have been to capital funding not day-to-day operating budgets.