Big stretch to bridge schools’ budget gap

Schools need a more than

$1 billion cash injection to absorb a surge in student numbers and to repair ailing buildings, the Government says.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has revealed to Stuff details of what he claims is a funding shortfall left by the previous Government. He and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have been hinting at funding issues with school property for months.

Hipkins said there would be an extra 16,690 students in classrooms by 2020 and the last Government had made no budget plans for this.

$1.1b in capital spending was needed to cover population growth particularly in Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga; the Christchurch schools rebuild; and urgent repair work.

The additional students would also necessitate extra spending on more teachers, resources and operational spending, he said.

‘‘You always expect population growth and there would be some movement around that but

$1.1b is a significant amount of money that we would have at least considered to be flagged up as an issue for the future and it wasn’t,’’ Hipkins said.

National Party education spokeswoman Nikki Kaye said investing in school property to get ahead of growth was a priority under National’s government. In the 2017 Budget, $240m had been allocated to fund another 4000 student places.

An Auckland Education Growth Plan had been due to go to Cabinet in November last year before the Government changed, Kaye said.

Hipkins said his Government had inherited about $3.5b of forecast spending through to the 2020/21 budget.

But it wasn’t enough to deal with immediate problems let alone future ones, he said. Over the next three budgets, $929m was needed to cover the cost of new schools and classrooms and to meet the cost of the Christchurch rebuild.

The remaining $166m was needed for urgent remediation and demolition of classrooms and buildings. ‘‘Clearly we can’t pump $1.1b in, in one year, but we know over this term of government this is the challenge we’re going to face,’’ Hipkins said.

While the operational funding schools need is separate to money needed for buildings, it is affected by the same problems.

‘‘Teacher salaries and teacher supply are an integral part of meeting the forecast growth,’’ Hipkins said. In March, he announced a complete overhaul of the education system, which meant reviewing the Tomorrow’s Schools model that handed greater responsibility and freedom to school boards of trustees.

That 30-year-old model was part of the problem being seen today with run-down school property, Hipkins said.

‘‘I think it’s fair to say school property has not been well managed for at least 30 years.

‘‘For a period of time the Ministry of Education played a minimal role in school property management and that led to some schools being really badly run down.’’

FINGER OF BLAME

The Labour-led Government has repeatedly claimed it has inherited major funding problems from its predecessor National-led Government.

It has pointed to deficits at district health boards and a blowout in the cost of earthquake rerepairs in Christchurch.

It has at the same time said it won’t be able to fund everything it promised in the election campaign as soon as it had hoped.

Hipkins again pointed the finger at the National-led government, saying it needed to accept ‘‘the lion’s share of the blame’’ for ‘‘not properly allowing for population growth’’.

‘‘This would have been something the previous government would have and should have been aware of,’’ Hipkins said.

But Kaye said National had increased investment in school property by more than $5b over nine years.