$813.6 million for education sector

The education sector has been allocated $813.6 million.

The Government has also set aside $375.1m towards subsidies for Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres, trades academies and tertiary education. The money would also go to operation grants.

Over the next two years, $216.7m in operating and $3.9m in capital expenditure had been allocated to the school lunch programme – this expansion would provide 200,000 more children free lunches and there would be 2000 jobs available.

ECE was given $291.6m as part of a package that would see a

3.5 per cent increase to qualified ECE teachers’ pay, ongoing funding for ko¯hanga reo to meet staffing cost pressures and extra support for home-based educators to transition to aminimum Level 4 ECE qualification.

The package would also provide support to playcentre ‘‘sustainability’’ and fund the Early Childhood Education Provider Assessment Group.

A package had also been set up for school property, with the Government investing $119.5m.

Learning support has received $79.7m. It includes funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages staff and funding for the School High Health Needs Fund, which offers teachers’ aide support to students with high health needs.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins said the school lunch programme expansion ‘‘will build on the current phased roll out, which is on track to deliver free healthy school lunches for up to 21,000 students in years 1 to 8 by the end of this year.

‘‘The scale of expansion means work is needed to prepare and scale up during termthree, including hiring local people and building systems and processes that reduce compliance costs on providers and improve data security.’’