It is no secret that the government is struggling to balance the country’s books. Yet, in last week’s budget, nearly $2.5 billion was found for new educational initiatives.  

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.